


and it's like our world but we're the last ones left

by lostresidentevilpotter



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Leatin Endgame, Wordcount: Over 100.000, it'll take some time but I PROMISE Leatin will get together by the end you have my word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 102,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29322708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostresidentevilpotter/pseuds/lostresidentevilpotter
Summary: It doesn't take long for Leah to figure out that there's no returning to their normal lives after the island. Fatin Jadmani is now a permanent part of her existence. (Frankly, all the girls are. Fatin just happens to live the closest.)Or, it takes 100k words for Leah and Fatin to get it together (and Dot hasn't been this invested in something since the last season of Survivor).
Relationships: Dot Campbell & Fatin Jadmani, Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke, Leah Rilke & Rachel Reid, Martha Blackburn/Marcus, Shelby Goodkind & Leah Rilke, Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe (background)
Comments: 1338
Kudos: 809





	1. 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINISHED THIS THING. Holy shit. It's literally just under 100k and I've only just begun editing, so I can almost guarantee you it will hit over 100k. Buckle up, my friends. It's gonna be a long ride. I have the entire first draft written, so any delays in posting will be due to the fact that I edit my shit (and I'm a struggling law student). But hopefully the wait is worth it. 
> 
> The major character death warning applies to this first chapter, but there's really only one death (plus Linh's canon death). We're dealing with the Unsinkable SEVEN here, unfortunately.
> 
> Title is from Heaven by Angels & Airwaves

What happens on the island, stays on the island. At least, Leah figures that’s how it’s going to be on their first day of senior year. Leah sits on one of the picnic tables before school starts, sneakers braced on the bench, Ian sitting to her right. (Being trapped on an unknown island in the middle of nowhere for months worked wonders to solve the issues between Leah and Ian.) She’d be lying if she said she isn’t trying to keep an eye out for the one other person who knows intimately what she went through. And she’d be lying if she said her mouth doesn’t go dry, if she said her heart doesn’t beat faster when she spots the car whip into the parking lot. (The car was a _welcome back from the island_ and a _we’re so sorry for signing you up for a fucked up experiment_ gift from her parents. It’s been all over social media the last couple weeks.)

Ian lets out a low whistle. “Look at Fatin’s new ride,” he says. Then he pauses, eyes shifting from the car to Leah’s face. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “If you don’t want to talk about her – I mean, I get it. We can just –”

“Ian, it’s fine,” Leah mutters. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m going to break just because I took an unplanned three month vacation on a deserted island.”

(She already did break, as far as she’s concerned. On the island. During the months of therapy – still ongoing, by the way, for all of them as far as Leah knows – that followed. She can’t be any more broken, and certainly Fatin Jadmani isn’t going to break her now that they’re attempting to melt back into their normal lives.)

“No, right, I know that,” Ian says. He winces; his eyes stay locked on the side of Leah’s face, but Leah’s eyes stay locked on that fucking car. (It’s the latest model of the Audi R8. Yellow. All the optional luxury features added on. It gets terrible gas mileage. The price was somewhere over 150 grand. Fatin posted all the details on Instagram. And Facebook. And Twitter. And on her Snapchat story. And maybe Leah remembers it all.) Fatin hasn’t gotten out yet, but the windshield is tinted just slightly dark enough that Leah can’t make out any defining features, can only tell there’s a person seated behind the wheel (even though that person is obviously Fatin Jadmani). “How did she even survive it?” Ian asks aloud. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he blurts a moment later. “I shouldn’t have –”

“Stop,” Leah says quietly. “Stop apologizing.” (And he does.) The car’s door opens and a leg pokes out. Leah’s eyes start at the Vans on Fatin’s feet, work their way up past the skinny jeans, the bright red shirt with the top three buttons undone, flashing a bit of the gold bra beneath it, and Leah’s eyes stop at the large hoops in her ears, at the full face of flawlessly applied makeup, at her hair, meticulously straightened. This is the pre-island Fatin Jadmani in the post-island world, looking as though it never happened at all. Her phone is in her hand. Leah watches Fatin head to the passenger’s side of the car to retrieve her backpack, hears the car beep as it locks.

“Her parents must’ve really felt bad,” Ian comments. “Spending that kind of money on a car?”

Leah grunts in response, snaps the book she’s been attempting to read (since she got back to society, really, though she’s made very little progress) – shut. She crams it in her backpack as the first warning bell rings.

(“This is what happens,” Fatin had slurred on Instagram Live last week. The camera’s movements were jerky, too fast, but the car was hard to miss. “This is what happens when your – when your sleazy dad cheats on – on your mom then blames you and sends you to die in some – some fucked up experiment in the fucking wild. This is what it gets you.” And then she’d draped herself over the hood of the car, holding the camera above her face as she laughed uncontrollably, so hard that tears rolled down her face. Leah debated over texting Dot, knowing that, out of all the girls, Dot was the most likely to not see it due to her refusal to join Instagram, even at Fatin’s insistence, but Leah ultimately decided against it. Dot had her own shit going on – still does. If Dot found out about Fatin’s drunken Instagram Live – well, Leah assumed Dot would reach out to Fatin and be much more likely to get a cordial response.)

“I think all our parents feel bad,” Leah finally says. She smiles wryly. “You know what I got?”

“What?”

“A free pass to lay in bed for a week straight without anyone telling me to _get up and do something with my life_.”

Ian snorts. “Too bad you don’t have Fatin’s parents. Otherwise, you’d have a new car. And probably an entire new wardrobe. Shit, maybe a house of your own.”

“Yeah, actually, I think I’m good,” Leah says, swallowing hard. (She knows the cost of all those material goods, and she’d rather not pay it.)

“No cello,” Ian notes. At the blank look he receives from Leah, he clarifies, “Fatin isn’t carrying her cello with her.” Then he waits for an explanation. Leah just shrugs. “What? She just reevaluated her entire life while you were stuck out there?” he questions. “Decided she didn’t want to go to Julliard after all?”

“I don’t know,” Leah lies. She hops down from the picnic table, knowing Ian will follow dutifully. Fatin, for the first time as she makes the walk across the lawn toward the building, looks over at Leah. Their eyes lock, briefly, and one corner of Leah’s mouth curves slightly upward. Almost imperceptibly. Fatin, for her part, tilts her head forward, just a little. And then they both look away. “We all had a lot of reevaluating to do.”

*

She’s covered in blood. She doesn’t know how. (Yes she does.) She’s not even really helping. (Yes she is.) Dot mostly has the situation under control (No she doesn’t.) More than one person’s screaming. (Is Leah one of them? Maybe? Later, her throat will feel raw, but there’s a nice, large blank spot in her memory as far as the question of screaming is concerned.) Fatin’s definitely screaming.

“What in the fuck just happened?” Fatin yells, hands tangled in her hair, eyes wild. (She’s wearing more blood than Leah.)

“Fatin! Pull it the fuck together and get me something to help stop this bleeding!” Dot yells back. And that’s enough to snap her out of it for the time being, at least as far as Leah can tell. Fatin does exactly as she’s told, snatching up the nearest article of clothing and rushing it over to Dot. Leah drops down at Dot’s side, at Rachel’s side, but Dot shakes her head as she winds the shirt around the place where Rachel’s hand used to be. ( _Used_ to be. As in, Rachel’s hand is completely gone.) “No,” Dot says. “Leah – go help Nora. Fatin and Martha – stay with me.”

Leah had dragged Rachel in before they’d realized the extent of the damage, and now she’s being sent to help _Nora_? Nora, who talks to the trees to some unseen entity. Nora, who definitely fucking knows _something_. Nora, who let Leah believe she was fucking losing her mind, when really, Leah was close ( _so_ close) to the truth. Still, Leah can’t argue. She stumbles over to Nora’s side, joining Toni and Shelby, and somehow, Leah just knows, this can’t end well. (Nora took the brunt of the blow from the shark. She took it for Rachel, and maybe Leah would be able to feel sick when she lays eyes on the mangled mess that Nora’s torso has become, but her mind works faster than her body – always has – and she shuts that part of her right off, right away.)

“What do we do?” Shelby cries. Her hands, coated in blood, hover over Nora’s stomach, unsure of what to do, and Leah’s eyes turn to Nora’s face.

“The bleeding,” Toni answers. “The bleeding has to stop first. We have to make it stop.”

“You can’t – stop it,” Nora says, startling them all. Blood bubbles between her lips (and Leah doesn’t know it yet, but it’s a sight that’s going to haunt her for years to come). “I am so sorry,” Nora whispers. “I’m so sorry, Leah. You’re right. You’ve been right this whole time. And I wish I could do it over. But she – she’s manipulating this. All of it.” (Leah wants to ask _who_. Who is _she_? Her mouth won’t form the words.) Nora’s hand turns over, and Leah doesn’t hesitate to take it, doesn’t think twice. Toni and Shelby stare at them both like they’ve lost it while frantically trying to staunch the bleeding any way that they can, soaking numerous garments of Fatin’s clothing with blood. “Make sure Rachel lives,” Nora says. “Promise me – promise me that you’ll do your best to keep her alive. To get her home safe.”

Leah nods, keeps nodding. “Okay,” she agrees. “I – I promise. I’ll do everything I can.”

(She’s too calm. Leah feels too calm, even if her mind isn’t calm. Anything but. It races to put together the pieces, races to process what’s unfolding right in front of her, races to process the fact that a girl that’s become one of her friends not only betrayed them all but is now dying right before her, as Leah holds her hand.)

“Leah,” Toni snaps. “Help us.”

“It’s okay,” Nora says through the blood. (Leah watches it roll down the side of Nora’s face then locks eyes with Nora again.) Shelby seems to come to her senses first, seems to realize that Nora’s injuries are too severe, probably even for a medical professional to treat. Shelby takes Nora’s other hand, and after another moment of hesitation, Toni grabs onto Nora’s shoulder. “Tell her I love her,” Nora says to Leah, and Leah nods firmly, lips pressing together. But she doesn’t cry. (Not yet. But Shelby does, right away and then on and off the rest of the night.)

It doesn’t take long. And Leah hopes against all odds that it’s not (too) painful for Nora.

“Okay!” Dot shouts. “I think – we’re getting it under control. I think the bleeding is stopping.”

Rachel must be passed out, because she’s silent. It’s just deafening silence, even accounting for the waves and the way the wind whips around them. Leah’s hand slips out of Nora’s finally. (Slips, because of all the blood coating both their hands.) Leah staggers to her feet. Dot, Martha, and Fatin all watch her. (She doesn’t know where she’s going. Not into the water. No, someone will tackle her before she ever gets there. But she can’t stay here, on the beach, right where Nora just – she can’t even think the word. None of this was supposed to happen. They weren’t supposed to crash. They weren’t supposed to _die_. First Jeanette and now – _no_. This wasn’t supposed to _happen_. They’re supposed to be in fucking Hawaii.)

“Leah,” Dot calls. “Where are you going? What’s –?”

And that’s the moment Dot turns back, hands still occupied with Rachel’s wound, but Shelby sobbing into Toni’s chest must tell Dot everything she needs to know, and Dot’s face falls. Martha leans forward, forehead resting against Rachel’s chest, and she cries silently until Toni and Shelby join her, and the three of them group together for the rest of the night. And Fatin just watches Leah walk aimlessly around the beach.

Leah (mostly) holds it together until nightfall, until Rachel regains consciousness and Leah has to relay Nora’s message to her. (Until Leah has to be the one to confirm for Rachel that, no, Nora did not make it, and yes, Nora may have had something to do with orchestrating all of this. Until Leah has to tell Rachel that Nora said she loved her and wanted her to live.) And it’s from that moment on that Rachel screams all night. (All night. Intermixed with ragged sobs. She shoves away every person who tries to comfort her.) Leah can’t imagine the pain Rachel’s in – not physically, and not emotionally, either.

And it’s sometime in the middle of the night (2:52 a.m.) that Leah collapses to the sand, her legs unable to support her weight (and her pacing) any longer. So she sits against her own will, and the moment her ass hits the sand is the same moment the tears finally start rolling down her face, cutting through the dirt and grime and blood. Once she starts, it’s almost impossible to stop, and as Rachel screams, not too far down the beach, Leah can’t stifle her sobs (but no one’s around – or they shouldn’t be. There are still more pressing issues than Leah’s emotional breakdown).

Someone drops to the sand beside Leah unceremoniously, only a few minutes later. (Leah doesn’t have to look to know who. There’s only one person who consistently seeks her out when shit gets bad.) Fatin, maybe for the first time ever in her life, truly looks rough. (Even when they all had food poisoning, she still looked pretty decent, all things considered.) Leah has blood smeared across her face, neck, hands, dried in patches in her shirt and pants, but Fatin is _covered_ in blood. (She’d dragged Nora in, first and foremost, hauling her to her feet before any of them knew the kind of injuries Nora was sporting, and Nora had fallen straight into Fatin.)

Fatin doesn’t bother with any bullshit questions (or any flat out lies). She lifts her arm, and Leah falls into her, sobs into her chest (the way Shelby had done with Toni earlier, but that’s not something Leah has the energy to analyze – and besides, Toni and Shelby have been acting strange around each other for days). And Fatin just holds her through it, arms locked around Leah. (On this fucking island, Fatin is Leah’s rock, and Leah hates herself for daring to think that.)

This moment – this day – is their collective rock bottom.

(Leah wakes up the next morning, face pressed to Fatin’s chest, against her bloodied jacket. Their legs are tangled together, Fatin’s hand resting against Leah’s lower back. She clings to Leah as much as Leah clings to her. And in the five seconds before yesterday’s events come crashing down, Leah feels at peace.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Next chapter should be up soon!


	2. 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally forgot to say some things in the notes of the first chapter so let me do that now. First, I need to thank my friend Kidfish for pushing me all the way to the end of this fic. I wrote this shit relatively fast, and I really needed the support the entire time. Second, you can always find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight if you wanna yell at me about this fic lol. Third, this chapter is pretty short but the rest of the chapters vary in length. I was not consistent with my chapter word counts this time around (and yes, it bothers me, but I am dealing with it). Hope you enjoy it. More to come soon!

The first day of classes is fucking surreal. The whispers in Leah’s first classroom come to a dead halt when she walks in, all eyes on her. They all look away quickly as Leah dumps her bag to the floor, taking a seat in the back row. She slumps down in her chair, but almost no one is bold enough to turn around and full on stare at her. (Maybe she should’ve taken up her parents’ offer to transfer schools, but something kept her from saying _yes_ when she learned that Fatin intended to return here.) Leah pulls her phone out, doesn’t put it away when the teacher starts class (and she isn’t asked to put it away, either).

She scrolls mindlessly through Instagram, coasting through pictures of things that don’t matter. (Nothing quite like almost dying for some sick woman’s idea of an experiment to learn about the important things in life.) Leah freezes, thumb hovering over a picture posted by Fatin Jadmani, exactly 36 minutes ago. It’s one photo, clearly taken at a party, with one of Fatin’s arms draped around a (shorter) girl’s neck while Fatin leans into a (much taller) guy, his arm around her. Fatin’s smirking. Her skirt is short. Leah’s vision blurs, and she blinks it away, scrolls quickly past the photo before she ever reads the caption.

(It’s not fair that Fatin’s life got to go almost totally back to normal, whereas Leah had to tear hers down and start all over again. It’s also not fair of Leah to pretend like Fatin’s life has truly snapped right back into what it used to be.)

The day drags and flies by at the same time. (Leah sort of appreciates the normalcy of it all. Being surrounded by all her peers – none of whom have a real care in the world, none of whom have experienced brink of death starvation or constant exposure to the elements or a shark attack that somehow traumatized seven people and killed one – is almost comforting. They have petty problems, as far as Leah is concerned. They’re worried about their follower count or whether their crush might like them back. Leah worries about reliving the fucking island every time she closes her eyes.) Before she knows it, Leah’s walking out the front door, eyes searching the crowd for Ian.

Instead, her eyes land on Fatin. Up close, Fatin looks less composed than Leah had assumed this morning. They’re too close for Leah to be able to get away with averting her gaze and walking by without some kind of interaction with Fatin (even if it’s just a polite nod, just to acknowledge that they lived through some shit together and now it’s over but still, it happened).

“Fatin,” Leah says gruffly.

“Leah,” Fatin replies. Leah thinks they’ll walk right past each other, but as she tries to do just that, Fatin’s hand catches her elbow. (Fatin doesn’t use any sort of strength to stop Leah. Just touches her, and that’s enough for Leah to grind to a halt.) “Let’s take a walk.”

*

“Leah. Leah!” Fatin’s fingers curl around Leah’s wrist, tugging gently but firmly. “Let’s take a walk,” Fatin says. (Her tone is clear: this isn’t a suggestion. They _are_ taking a walk, and they _are_ doing it right now.) Leah glances over her shoulder. Dot relaxes her defensive stance, starts to shift away from Shelby. Surprisingly, Toni takes Dot’s place. But Leah doesn’t have time to analyze that yet.

“Where are we going?” Leah mutters.

“Away from them,” Fatin replies. “Look, I know you’re having a hard time, but you can’t take that shit out on us. Not even on our resident bigot over there. No offense, but it’s making you look fucking crazy.”

“Maybe I am fucking crazy.”

Fatin releases Leah’s wrist, stops walking. Leah comes to a reluctant stop, too, and dares to meet Fatin’s gaze. “You’re not crazy,” Fatin says quietly. She crosses her arms over her chest, and while Leah glances back at the rest of the group, all still reeling from her little freak out on Shelby about possibly being a spy, Fatin’s eyes never leave Leah’s face.

“If I’m wrong,” Leah says, cutting herself off when her voice breaks. She inhales shakily, collects herself quickly while Fatin’s eyes study her. “If I’m wrong, then I’m fucking crazy, Fatin. Like _literally_ fucking crazy.”

“Hey. _Hey_. You aren’t crazy,” Fatin assures her. Leah won’t look her in the eye, not until Fatin grabs ahold of her shoulders. “But you are kinda acting like it,” Fatin adds. Her smile is gentle, maybe a little teasing. “So let’s dial it back, okay? And it might not be a terrible idea for you to start coming up with ways to apologize to our Homophobic Homecoming Queen.”

Leah scoffs, attempting to fight off a smile. “We don’t know that she was homecoming queen.”

Fatin’s eyes roll. “Look at her and tell me she wasn’t.” Fatin’s smile widens at the same time that Leah’s does. She squeezes Leah’s shoulders, and Leah shakes her head.

“I guess you’re right,” Leah concedes.

“Of course I’m right,” Fatin says. (Her eyes are soft, and the depths of her concern are buried beneath that unusual surface softness. Leah won’t see the full extent of Fatin’s concern over her mental stability clearly until after Rachel drags her ass out of the ocean.) Fatin’s eyes leave Leah’s face, briefly, just to flicker over to the rest of their group (probably seeking out Dot, if Leah has to guess). “Okay, come here,” Fatin says. She’s already grasping onto Leah’s shoulders; it isn’t difficult for her to pull Leah into her, lock her arms around Leah’s neck. Leah hugs her back gingerly, like she’s afraid to break her. (As if Fatin isn’t one of the strongest people here.) Leah becomes acutely aware for the first time that she’s just slightly taller than Fatin. (And she’ll notice it again later that same day, when the plane flies over and spots them, and as a result, Fatin launches herself into Leah’s arms.)

Leah lets her body relax while Fatin holds onto her, but her mind races. (Maybe she was wrong to accuse Shelby of being a spy. Maybe it’s not Shelby. But there is one. Leah knows it, can feel it in her bones like a persistent ache. Or maybe it’s more like an itch. _Something isn’t right_.)

“You’re gonna be good, right?” Fatin murmurs next to Leah’s ear. “I’m not going to have to, like, be totally creepy and stalk you to make sure you don’t flip out on someone again?”

“I’m fine.”

Fatin nods against Leah shoulder then steps back. Fatin’s hand lingers against the side of Leah’s neck for a moment (a moment Leah really shouldn’t make a mental note of but does anyway). Fatin’s eyes scrutinize Leah before she says, “Don’t go dark on me, Rilke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one was short, but the next chapter will be longer (and the next chapter is also one of my favorites in this fic).
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!


	3. 16

Leah manages not to ask any questions as Fatin leads her toward the bike path. For a while there, Leah thinks maybe Fatin’s going to walk her ass all the way home. (It’s at least a couple miles, so Leah really hopes that’s not Fatin’s plan.) Once they’re on the path, though, safely out of the line of sight of the school, Fatin stops walking. (A group of students passes by, laughing, and while they look twice at Leah and Fatin to confirm that, yes, that _is_ Fatin Jadmani and Leah Rilke standing on the bike path together, they don’t stop, don’t stare for a super impolite amount of time.)

“Are you okay?” Leah finally asks once they’re alone again. Fatin inhales sharply, looks ready to say something, until two guys step onto the path and stare right at them.

“Can I help you?” Fatin prompts when neither guy speaks.

“We were just wondering if you’d come to our party this Friday,” one of the dudes says nonchalantly. He’s the frat bro type, wearing a muscle tee with the name of a gym on the front (and muscles to support the idea that yes, he works out) and an LA Dodgers cap turned backwards on his head. “Both of you,” he clarifies.

“Um, I don’t really do –” Leah starts to answer, but Fatin cuts in impatiently with, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, we’ll be there.” Then shoos them away with her hand, and surprisingly, they walk off.

“I don’t want to go to their party,” Leah tells her. “I don’t even know who those guys are.”

“Forget the party, Leah.”

Leah balks. “I – we weren’t talking about anything else?”

(Obviously Leah knows there is only one Fatin Jadmani. The Fatin on the island is the very same Fatin standing in front of her right now. Suggesting otherwise would indicate something is seriously wrong with either Leah or with the fabric of the universe. But it’s almost like there are two Fatins. On the island, as horrible as it all was, they were all free. They had no reservations – no reason to have any reservations. They were stripped down to who they are at their core. And once they stepped back into society, they stepped right back into their costumes, slapped on the mask. Fatin isn’t who she was before the island, but she’s desperately trying to be. And maybe everyone else around them doesn’t notice, but Leah can see right through her.)

Fatin bursts into tears. Leah startles, immediately glances up and down the bike path (still empty, just them) then doesn’t hesitate to pull Fatin into her. (But only once there are no witnesses. Everyone in the fucking country may know that Fatin and Leah were trapped on an island for months together, but that doesn’t entitle them to know anything about the inner workings of their lives.) Fatin tucks her head against Leah’s chest, and Leah’s too stunned to do much of anything except hold on. (She wants to ask what happened, what’s wrong, but knows she’s unlikely to get an immediate answer. She wants to offer up comforting words but comes up empty. On some level, though, Leah just understands.)

Fatin has the back of Leah’s shirt clutched in both of her hands. (Leah can feel a breeze against the skin of her lower back, but she bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from asking Fatin to please put her shirt back into place.) Leah tries not to think about what this might look like if someone spots them – or God forbid, snaps a picture and uploads it to Instagram or Twitter or something and hashtags it _#UnsinkableSeven_ (and the caption would probably question what’s going on between Fatin and Leah – _a possible island romance bleeding over into regular life????_ Even though _nothing_ is going on, nothing at all, but that never stops people) and then it’ll be everywhere. Leah will probably turn the TV on tomorrow and see it on the morning news. (Just last week, Rachel made headlines because she dared to go for a jog in a sports bra and some jerk recognized her and posted the picture all over social media, so shit hasn’t completely blown over. Leah doesn’t want to think about how it might never completely blow over.)

Fatin calms down on her own, starts to ease up on her hold on Leah’s shirt. “Fatin,” Leah says quietly, and Fatin stiffens and suddenly jumps back, swiping at her cheeks with her hands. Leah snags the strap of Fatin’s backpack, stopping her from bolting, and Fatin reluctantly turns back. (It’s jarring to see Fatin in such a disarray, with smudged makeup – well, it’s kind of strange seeing Fatin wearing a full face of makeup again, period.) Before Leah can ask what that was all about, Fatin surges forward, palms coming up to Leah’s face. (Leah doesn’t think twice about kissing her back. Maybe she should.) Fatin’s hands don’t stay there long. One pushes into Leah’s hair, the other dropping to Leah’s shoulder, and Leah only barely manages to grab onto Fatin’s hips, mostly to steady herself.

(Kissing Fatin this time is weird. Wait, that makes it sound like they do this a lot. And they don’t. Twice. It happened twice, and it doesn’t count, because it was on the island then in the bunker, and they were all kind of losing it anyway. But still, Fatin has lip gloss on, and she tastes like some kind of mint gum. And Leah has kissed a couple girls under normal circumstances – meaning before the island fucked up her life _and_ eight other lives, counting both Nora and Linh but excluding Gretchen and her team – but those girls aren’t Fatin Jadmani, known for sleeping around with _guys_. And now they aren’t in a highly unusual life or death situation, and Fatin’s upset about something, and Leah’s brain feels overloaded as she gives in and lets Fatin kiss her. Technically for the third time, but really it’s the first time if you wipe out anything to do with the island.)

They could be seen if anyone simply walks onto the bike path, and this would be infinitely worse than any photo of Leah holding Fatin while she cries. They’d make headlines across every celebrity gossip magazine or website or TV show. Then they’d _really_ be asked about anything that might’ve happened on the island between them, and when they deny it (because what happened? Nothing. Nothing fucking happened – even counting the two times they kissed) no one will believe them because if there’s a _picture_ –

And maybe Fatin has that same realization and that’s what causes her to jolt back. (Or maybe she’s just finally coming to her senses.) Leah lets go of Fatin’s hips, more out of surprise than anything else, and Fatin takes a full step back, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. (Her face is impossible to read. Leah’s pretty sure her confusion shines through on her own face, but Fatin’s like a brick wall.)

“Fatin, what was…?” Leah breathes. Fatin’s eyes widen. “I don’t –”

“I’m sorry,” Fatin whispers, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.” Then she turns and takes off for the parking lot. (She doesn’t have to jog; Leah’s too stunned to even think to run after her.) A full minute goes by before Leah’s feet start to carry her toward the parking lot. Her car is one of the last few in the student lot. (The yellow Audi is gone.) Leah dumps her backpack into the back of her (reliable, eco-friendly, not at all expensive) Ford. Once she’s behind the wheel, she pulls her phone out and opens her text messages. She clicks the name, and there are exactly two messages between them. (Just a quick _hey_ from each of them in order to swap numbers.)

**3:03 p.m.** _Hey have you talked to Fatin recently? Does she seem okay?_

Leah doesn’t expect a quick answer. (She won’t be surprised if she gets no answer at all.) She parks her car against the curb outside of her house before she looks at her phone again, and there’s a message waiting for her.

**Dot, 3:07 p.m.** _We talk but you literally go to the same school still, don’t you? Just ask her yourself_

Not helpful.

**3:15 p.m.** _Yeah but it doesn’t feel like it’s my place_

**3:15 p.m.** _Can you please just make sure she’s okay?_

**Dot, 3:17 p.m.** _Why wouldn’t she be okay?_

(Leah never answers.)

*

“We’re going home, bitches!” Martha shouts, lifting the bottle of vodka, and that sets off a celebration that lasts the rest of the day. (They don’t know it then, when they’re eating all their food and drinking vodka and getting high, that rescue is still a long ways out. They don’t know they’re in a fucked up experiment that’s controlled by one Gretchen Klein. They don’t know she takes care of that pilot, one way or another. What exactly she did to prevent that pilot from reporting the girls’ location is for the jury to decide, whenever Gretchen actually gets put on trial. These things always take way too much time.)

If Leah wasn’t so high, spending half the day splashing around in the ocean with everyone else would entirely wipe out her energy level, but she feels fucking amazing. (They’re gonna be going _home_ soon; they’re gonna have indoor plumbing again, and Leah will be able to take a hot shower and sleep in a _bed_ and see her dog after sixteen impossibly long days.) Leah staggers over to their shelter (which they definitely don’t sleep in because there’s barely enough room for all eight of them to sit side-by-side in it) and doesn’t think twice about working her way out of her shorts. (It takes some effort since the denim is soaked with saltwater and Leah is high as fuck, but eventually the shorts hit the sand. Her underwear is soaked, too, but Leah’s not about to totally strip. That’d be way too predictable.) Leah trips – maybe over her shorts, maybe over nothing – and finds herself falling into the opening of their shelter. She hits the sand on her stomach, laughing about – well, she’s not quite sure what’s so funny apart from her unexpected fall.

“Shit!” Fatin exclaims, scrambling to sit up. (Leah’s lucky she didn’t land on Fatin. She hit the sand just beside Fatin’s legs, only a few inches shy. Fatin hasn’t changed out of what she swam in – mismatching leopard print bottoms and shirt. And her shirt is see-through, thanks to the water. Not that Fatin’s concerned with hiding her patterned bra.)

“What are you doing here?” Leah questions. She lifts her face from the sand, smiling lazily. "Get out.”

“I was here first,” Fatin retorts. “So you get out.” Instead of coming up with something witty (or leaving the shelter), Leah just laughs. Fatin grins at her and lays back down, exhaling. “Well?” Fatin says. “If you aren’t going to leave, you might as well join me.” She pats the space beside her. “Come on.”

Leah drags herself the rest of the way inside and settles on her stomach next to Fatin. There’s barely enough room for the two of them to lay side-by-side, arm to arm. Leah plants her chin against her hands, shamelessly staring at the side of Fatin’s face. (If she wasn’t high, she definitely wouldn’t be staring. But she _is_ high, and Fatin’s pretty fucking beautiful, so Leah’s going to stare.) Leah can’t help but wonder what’ll happen to them when they go back. If they’ll go back to pretending the other person doesn’t exist.

And then Leah realizes she said that thought out loud, because Fatin turns her head to look at her, eyebrows raising. “Is that what you want?” Fatin asks. “To go back and pretend like it all never happened?”

Leah’s jaw slackens. Her brain’s only just catching up to the fact that she’d spoken something that she thought was staying in her mind. “I – I mean, I didn’t say _that_.” (Did she? She doesn’t know.) “I’m just…like, what’s going to happen?”

Fatin hums, seems to give the question serious consideration. (She thinks about it longer than she probably would have if she wasn’t so high, too. Fatin normally has a quick response ready for almost anything imaginable.) As Fatin thinks, she reaches over and swipes her fingers through the sand plastered to Leah’s cheek. (Falling straight into dry sand immediately after getting out of the ocean is something Leah will regret later.) The sand still clings to Leah’s damp skin, of course, but Fatin’s hand is warm and dry, and Leah kinda hopes she’ll try again. She isn’t disappointed, watching Fatin grin as she struggles to brush all the sand off Leah’s face.

“That’s a losing game, Fatin,” Leah murmurs.

“Fatin Jadmani is no loser,” Fatin replies.

“I’m pretty sure the sand’s not going anywhere until I dry off or wash it off.”

Fatin’s hand stills against Leah’s face, against the grains of sand that don’t seem to want to leave Leah’s cheek. “I don’t know,” Fatin finally says.

“No, you can keep trying, but the sand isn’t –”

“No, I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get back,” Fatin corrects. “But I kind of…don’t care? Not that I don’t care about you,” she says quickly. “Or – what I mean is, after spending all this time here, it seems stupid to worry about some shit we have no control over. Like what happens when we’re pulled off of this shithole and thrown back into regular teenage life or whatever.” Fatin’s hand slides off Leah’s face, lands in the sand in the limited space between their bodies. “But you will be the only person there with any sort of understanding of the kind of hell we went through out here, so. I’m sure whatever happens, it’ll be okay.”

Leah squints at Fatin. “Are you okay?” she asks. “That was a very _not-Fatin-like_ answer. So am I just really high, or is it you?”

Fatin laughs, pushes at Leah’s (also sand covered) shoulder. Leah smiles, can’t imagine not smiling when Fatin laughs (wait, what?). “We’re doing this again, back home,” Fatin tells her. “This is the most relaxed I’ve seen you since – maybe ever?”

Leah’s eyes roll dramatically. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” (No point in arguing. Shit was better before she ever met Jeff fucking Galanis, but she can’t exactly say she was the most relaxed person ever before him, either.)

“I know I am,” Fatin says. Then Leah (stupidly) drops her forehead to the sand so Fatin can’t see her snort with laughter. It’s Fatin that snorts with laughter, though, when Leah lifts her head and has sand stuck to her forehead. “Oh my _God_. You’re a mess,” Fatin snickers. Her fingertips press into Leah’s arm. “Get over here.”

Leah obliges, leans in closer so Fatin can yet again try to brush the sand off of Leah’s face. (She’s a little more successful this time.) Leah braces most of her weight against her (sandy) forearms. Fatin stays on her back, doesn’t bother to lift her head from the sand, even with Leah almost hovering over her.

“We could’ve thought this through a little better,” Leah giggles as Fatin accidentally brushes a handful of sand toward her own face.

“If you could’ve stayed on your fucking feet, you wouldn’t be covered in sand,” Fatin replies. And if Fatin notices that their noses are almost touching, she doesn’t mention it, and she doesn’t shift away, either. (Fatin is unbothered when completely sober; it’s not exactly surprising that she’s still mostly composed even when she’s high.) Fatin gets most of the sand off Leah’s forehead, returns to trying to swipe it off her cheek and jaw. Her touch is gentle, soothing. Leah’s eyelids flutter shut, but only momentarily, because then her nose actually does touch Fatin’s, and the contact mildly startles Leah. Her eyes reopen to find Fatin staring at her curiously, fingers splayed out against Leah’s jaw.

(Looking back, Leah doesn’t remember consciously being, like, _fuck it_ , but her brain definitely must’ve said fuck it. Leah doesn’t even brace herself for the high probability of facing immediate rejection.)

Leah’s eyes close again the second her lips touch Fatin’s. She exhales through her nose as Fatin’s hand slides down from her jaw, fingertips pressing against the back of Leah’s neck. Fatin kisses her eagerly, like maybe she’d been waiting for this (and Leah tries to remind herself that Fatin hasn’t seen any action in weeks, tries to remind herself that Fatin is almost definitely the type to make out with women at parties solely for attention then turn around and fuck some guy). But that’s ridiculous, because Leah’s almost positive that Fatin normally gets what she wants, so if Fatin had wanted to kiss her before, she would’ve at least tried. (So it’s definitely Fatin’s forced dry spell that’s allowing this to happen. Has to be. There’s no better explanation.)

Thank fucking God that Leah’s so high. Otherwise she’d at least be mentally freaking out, if not actually freaking out. (She thought she’d snapped when she shouted at Shelby? She hasn’t seen anything yet.) It’s so fucking annoying that she can’t free either of her arms without having to break the kiss, and Leah’s afraid to break it, afraid if she does, it’ll be over for good, and it hasn’t ended yet. Fatin doesn’t wait long (unsurprisingly) to go all in with tongue (and Leah doesn’t mind; she’s had plenty of worse kisses), and if Leah wasn’t high, it’d be embarrassing how quickly it draws a moan out of her. And Fatin’s hand slips (intentionally? Unintentionally?) from Leah’s neck to her bare (fucking _sandy_ ) shoulder, and –

They are _not_ about to fuck in the shelter while their friends could discover them at any moment, while Leah is covered in sand and is high as fuck. Even Fatin isn’t that desperate (and Leah…doesn’t want to? She wishes her brain wouldn’t phrase it like a question). No. Leah’s mind shouldn’t even go there, but as Fatin’s fingers follow Leah’s bra strap down toward her chest, Leah can’t help but to wonder. (Wonder what Fatin thinks this is, if she’s thinking anything at all, if it’s just because Leah is here and it’s convenient, and they all know that Fatin’s been horny since they all crash landed here.)

And Leah will never find out what this is all about, because right as Fatin’s fingertips find their way to the swell of Leah’s breast, Martha comes crashing out of the woods screaming, “Guys! You guys! Guess what I just saw!” And then their friends’ voices start to get closer to the shelter, and Leah and Fatin spring apart like they’ve been electrocuted. Well, Leah yanks herself back; Fatin doesn’t exactly move, doesn’t exactly have to (or have anywhere to go, frankly). Leah lands on her back, panting slightly, and Fatin busts out laughing.

“Jesus Christ!” she exclaims. Fatin pushes herself upright, jabs Leah in the stomach. “You are fucking _covered_ in sand.” (And Leah is. Her face was just the start. It’s stuck to her stomach, the fronts of her legs. Probably her back now, too.) Fatin shakes her head. (She looks so fucking nonchalant that it’s making Leah’s head spin – but to be fair, that could also be the marijuana bears.) “Get your ass in the fucking ocean, Rilke,” Fatin says. “Wash that shit off.”

Martha claims she saw Marcus – alive. After Leah dunks herself in the ocean and dries off, they go discover the actual Marcus – the mannequin, very much not alive – and blame it on Martha being higher than the rest of them. Carrying Marcus back consumes most of the rest of their daylight, and they spend the night as a group, seated in a circle. Leah lays out on her stomach next to Fatin, dozes off a few times. She’s woken the last time by Fatin slapping her ass and telling her to stop being a party pooper (because it’s not even ten p.m. yet, according to the $78,000 watch on her wrist).

And whether Fatin’s high anymore or not, she gives no indication that anything happened between them earlier, and Leah sure as hell’s not going to raise that topic in front of the other six girls. She’s not in the mood to be harassed by Toni and Rachel or preached to by a suspiciously quiet Shelby, or laughed at by Dot, and she doesn’t want to hear a speech from Nora about how _it’s totally normal to explore your sexuality, and we’re in a highly unusual situation as it is_. (Besides, Leah’s pretty sure she’s got that shit on-lock. No, she knows without a single _doubt_ that she’s bi. Her fucking trainwreck relationship with Jeff proved her interest in men – albeit inappropriately older men – and if Leah wasn’t sure that she was into women before making out with Fatin under the roof of their shitty shelter, then she knows it for sure now.)

“Hey.”

Leah grunts as two hands push at her side, and she lifts her head in confusion. It’s dark-dark now, not like, sitting-by-firelight-dark anymore. Her eyes hone in on whoever’s disturbing her slumber, and they land on Fatin.

“Hmm?” Leah mumbles. “I’m tired. Let me sleep.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Fatin says. “But let’s do it in the usual spot with everyone else. C’mon. Give me your hands.”

Leah reaches out without opening her eyes, but Fatin still manages to haul her up. They walk the hundred feet or so back to their usual camp, in silence. Fatin holds onto Leah’s arm the whole way. (Leah tries not to think about it, but Fatin’s firm grasp on her bicep is sort of the only thing keeping Leah awake right now.) Leah considers saying something now, because she’s sure everyone else is already asleep if Fatin’s waking her up to move her. But when Leah lowers herself back down to the sand, she’s too tired. She’s asleep before she even knows what she could say to bring the kiss up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite chapters of the fic (along with chapter 14, so maybe keep that in the back of your mind) so let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Or you can always come yell at me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. Thank you all for being so wonderful and kind.


	4. 12

“How was your first day back?” Leah’s mom asks as Leah steps in the door. (Leah slides her phone in her pocket, deciding not to respond to Dot’s last text.)

“Fine,” Leah answers.

“Just fine?”

(The whole _ending up stranded on an island for three months thing_ hasn’t exactly decreased her parents’ ability to worry about Leah. Not even her ongoing therapy has gotten them to ease up.)

“Yeah,” Leah says. She shrugs, grabs an apple out of the bowl in the center of the table. “It’s school. What do you expect? It’s not like calculus is super exciting.”

Her mom seems to accept that answer, and Leah bites a large chunk out of the apple and heads for her room before she can be bombarded with more questions. ( _How were the classes? Your teachers? How’s Ian doing? Did you make any new friends? Did you see Fatin? And how’s she doing?_ ) Leah locks the door (old habit) and dumps her backpack to the floor. She has homework. She could do it. (Or she could email her teachers and make up some bullshit related to the island, entertains herself by imagining sending an email starting with _as a member of the Unsinkable Seven, I think I should be exempt from your assignment_ …)

She does the fucking homework. Of course she does. The only time she ever intentionally blew off school was when – well, maybe it’s better not to think about it. But she finishes all the fucking assignments, puts all her school shit away for the night, eats dinner with her parents to show them that she’s adjusting to real life just fine (and to assure them that she finished all her homework and that’s why she’s been locked in her room) then returns to her room to lounge in bed and scroll through Instagram and Twitter.

(And she tries desperately not to think about Fatin, but it’s kind of hard when Fatin regularly posts on Instagram, regularly updates her stories, tweets all her thoughts.)

Leah carries a half-hearted text conversation with Ian, trying not to feel guilty about never answering Dot’s question. ( _Why wouldn’t she be okay?_ Well, why _would_ she be okay? If she was okay, she wouldn’t have kissed Leah on the bike path after school before apologizing and running off.) Leah tries not to think about how she literally has Fatin’s number, how they’ve sort of texted semi-regularly since returning to the Bay. (Mostly just to check in or complain about society’s less-great aspects.) She could take Dot’s advice, text Fatin directly.

Right as Leah decides to just send a fucking text – something innocuous (or maybe something funny? She feels like Fatin would appreciate a joking _you up?_ ) – Leah gets a notification from Instagram.

_Fatin Jadmani started a live video_

Leah swallows hard, doesn’t know why she’s concerned about this. She closes out of her texts, opens Instagram. Her thumb hovers over the icon that indicates that Fatin is live right now. Leah bites down on her lower lip, debates watching it.

(She should’ve just sent a fucking text, like, an hour ago instead of overanalyzing all of her possible options.)

Leah doesn’t want to think Fatin has, like, a real problem, but this is the third time in recent memory (meaning within the last month) that Fatin has gone live while completely shitfaced. And it’s a Monday night. (And they have school tomorrow and for the rest of the week.) Her words slur together too much for her to be consistently coherent, but she seems upset about something (even if Leah can’t understand one fucking word of it).

Leah closes out of Instagram, goes back to her texts.

**7:41 p.m.** _Are you watching Fatin’s IG live???_

**Dot, 7:43 p.m.** _I don’t have Instagram, Leah. You’re lucky I even text back_

**Dot, 7:43 p.m.** _Why, what’s she doing?_

**Dot, 7:44 p.m.** _Did she get naked because then maybe I’d consider joining and yes you can absolutely tell her I said that_

(Any other time, Leah would’ve laughed at that, would’ve joked right back. Maybe she would’ve screenshotted it and texted it to Fatin with a snarky comment, if she didn’t know Fatin is currently drunk and on Instagram Live.)

**7:44 p.m.** _Dot, she’s fucking wasted_

**7:44 p.m.** _This is like the third time this month and it’s a Monday night_

Leah resists the urge to throw her phone against the wall when Dot suddenly stops responding. She has her own shit going on down in Texas. (Leah’s heard through Fatin that Dot is considering relocating, and she might even be talking with Fatin about the plan they made when they were high – a plan that might not be a joke – but there’s this guy in Texas and shit is complicated between him and Dot and Dot doesn’t want to abandon Shelby.)

**7:51 p.m.** _Dot???_

**Dot, 7:53 p.m.** _Leah chill I’m on the phone with her_

Leah hurries to check Instagram. Sure enough, Fatin’s not live anymore.

**7:55 p.m.** _Okay thanks_

**Dot, 7:57 p.m.** _But you know, if you’re so worried, you could probably literally walk to her house_

Leah rolls her eyes. (She could totally do that – well, she would drive – but she doesn’t really feel like it’s her place to show up on Fatin’s doorstep, and she is historically bad at meeting parents. But if Fatin’s parents have no problem letting her get drunker than fuck, maybe Leah would do just fine meeting the perfectionist and the serial cheater that Fatin calls Mom and Dad.)

**Dot, 8:00 p.m.** _I asked her and she said you’re more than welcome to just show up right now_

Leah’s entire body stiffens, and she sits upright on her bed, as if she’s suddenly lost her ability to read. She still rereads that message seven times before she gets to her feet. Instead of replying to Dot with _WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU ASK HER THAT???_ , Leah snags a black hoodie out of her closest, decides against changing out of her shorts and into jeans. Her legs carry her downstairs to the living room, to where her parents are seated on the couch together. (She’s never been more grateful to see that they’re still grossly in love.)

“Hey, um, I know it’s, like, getting late,” Leah says slowly, fidgeting with her fingers. She winces, starts again. “Would it be, like, cool if I went to a friend’s house? Like right now?”

(She’d gotten good at sneaking out when she was with Jeff. She could’ve probably just disappeared without her parents noticing, isn’t sure why she’s suddenly dying to get permission to do something.)

Her mother’s eyebrows raise. “That depends,” she says. “Which friend?”

“Is it a boy?” her dad pipes up.

“Kurt,” her mom chastises. He sends her a look, then _she_ sends _him_ a sterner look before turning back to Leah. “Which friend, honey?”

“Fatin.”

They both visibly relax. “Of course,” her mom says. “Have fun. And if you’re going to be really late or if you stay over, just text me, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Leah says. And then she’s out the door.

**8:07 p.m.** _If you’re still on the phone with her, let her know I’m coming_

*

Martha goes down first. Then Rachel. Toni. Nora, Dot, Fatin, and _then_ Leah. Shelby’s the only one who’s spared, obviously, because she never eats the fucking mussels. (Leah will later learn that Shelby actually _is_ deathly allergic to shellfish, and Leah will also later apologize for suspecting her in the first place.) It hits Leah like a truck, but she throws it all up in one (horrific) go and then it seems like the worst of it is over. Meanwhile, Shelby runs around delivering water and squeezing shoulders (and looking fucking terrified).

Leah (mostly) recovers first, manages to walk her ass to the ocean to rinse her mouth out, waiting to find out if it’s truly over or if it’s a false alarm (waits to see if this is just the first wave). Thankfully, Dot seems to recover quickly, too, joins Leah in the knee-deep water. They lose track of Shelby. (She keeps disappearing, acting shady, but it’s harder to analyze that disturbing fact when Leah’s world still spins occasionally, when her legs threaten to give out and send her face-first into the water.) Leah and Dot examine their situation quickly. The two of them are the best off (and that’s saying something; Leah would love nothing more than to crawl under a pile of Fatin’s clothes, block out the sunlight, and pass out for the next twelve hours). Fatin and Martha are able to walk, but Martha seems to have been hit harder than Fatin. Rachel and Nora are still down in the sand together, but they seem to be able to drink and not immediately heave it back up.

“Toni, man, she’s on the fucking brink,” Dot says. (Leah knows. Her eyes keep returning to Fatin, cradling Toni against her chest, unable to get Toni to keep any water down.) Dot suggests a divide and conquer strategy, and Leah goes along with it. She doesn’t have any better ideas, and no one else is exactly functioning better than her or Dot. (In hindsight, though, agreeing to track down the pilot’s bag is a big mistake. Well, no. Not immediately bringing the bag back is one of the biggest mistakes Leah makes on the island, and she narrowly avoids having it become one of the biggest mistakes of her entire life.)

Leah loses some time somewhere along the way (and some memories?). Next thing she knows, she’s watching Shelby force-feed Toni a pill. At least from there, they all get steadily better. (Or Leah thinks they’re all getting steadily better. They won’t realize how badly Martha’s got it until later.) They all regroup around the fire, napping on and off during the rest of the day. (Leah naps, and when she wakes up, Fatin, Toni, and Rachel are passed out and stay asleep until Leah takes another nap maybe an hour later. When Leah wakes up from her second nap, the sun is beginning to set, and everyone else is awake except for Dot, finally. Bitch needs to rest after spending most of the day acting like Shelby and trying to take care of them all even though she’s obviously not feeling so hot herself.)

Martha being sweaty doesn’t raise any alarm bells (not right away). Leah’s been sweating nonstop for the last twelve days. They’re all covered in a sheen of sweat, all the time, and though they all sweat a little worse today, they don’t see any reason to monitor Martha specifically. They don’t know how bad it is until Martha collapses. It takes all of them to carry Martha back to the fire. (If they weren’t all sick, only two of them, max, would’ve been needed to fully lift anyone off the ground. The fact that they can’t get Martha up without all seven of them is not exactly an encouraging sign.)

They find the lost pills in the woods by firelight, manage to get Martha the meds she needs, and then all they can do is hope for the fucking best. (And God, Leah knows it’s her fucking fault. She never should’ve tried to hunt Shelby down in the first place – even if Shelby’s been doing some seriously shady shit, even if the opportunity to track Shelby was impossible to resist. If Martha fucking dies, it’ll be on Leah, and how the fuck is Leah supposed to live with that?)

“Hey.” Fatin falls to the sand beside Leah more than she sits, but Leah can’t blame her. She’s still not the steadiest on her feet yet, either. “Why are you up?” Fatin asks.

“Why are you?”

Fatin blinks, eyes locked on the fire in front of them. (Off to Leah’s left, Martha’s sleeping with her head in Toni’s lap. To her right, past Fatin, Dot and Rachel and Nora are all passed out. Shelby’s sitting on her own on the opposite side of the fire, wearing this troubled expression, and Leah can’t help but to think it might be because she knows something that –) “Yeah, let’s not talk about why I’m still awake,” Fatin finally says, snapping Leah out of her thoughts.

Leah manages to crack a weary (fucking _exhausted_ ) smile. “It’s been a long, disgusting day,” Leah agrees.

Fatin’s eyes flicker over to Toni and Martha. “Yeah, well, it could’ve been fucking worse, that’s for sure,” Fatin mutters. “You, me, and Dot kinda won the lottery as far as getting food poisoning on a deserted island goes.”

Leah can’t disagree there. “The way she – Toni – the way she licked the shell…” Leah says slowly.

Fatin smirks. “You were into it? Is that what you’re about to say?”

“No,” Leah says quickly. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. At all.”

“No shame.”

“No, I was just – I was wondering if that’s why she got it so fucking bad.”

Fatin’s face falls. “Oh. Yeah. Never thought about that.” Fatin exhales heavily, wipes the sweat from her face with a nearby shirt. “Man, I was really hoping to get a chance to talk about sex, and instead you had to get all depressing on me.”

Leah scoffs. “No one’s been stopping you from talking about your total lack of orgasms since we crashed, what? Almost thirteen days ago?”

“Something like that. And thanks for the fucking reminder of how long it’s been.” Fatin pushes at Leah’s leg, but the smile on her face is playful.

“How are you feeling, though?” Leah asks. “Apart from the whole _no orgasms in at least the last twelve-to-thirteen days_ thing.”

“I feel fucking disgusting,” Fatin answers. “Like, I think this is the worst I’ve ever felt. And that’s including the weekend I spent binge-drinking in Fiji.”

Leah shakes her head. “I’ve had it worse,” she admits. “Food poisoning from that one place in the Bay – shit, what was it called? You know the one. They finally shut it down, like, two years ago?”

Fatin laughs, falls into Leah. She grabs onto Leah’s shoulder with both hands then muffles her laughter against the back of her hand. (Leah can feel Fatin’s whole body shake with silent laughter, and if she wasn’t so pleased with herself, maybe Leah would feel slightly offended.) “Yeah, I know the place,” Fatin says. “Can’t remember the fucking name because I was never stupid enough to eat there. No offense.”

“I’m, like, very offended,” Leah jokes. “It was Ian’s dumbass idea. And now that I think about it, all that fucker ordered was a Coke and a bag of chips.”

Fatin laughs even harder, her grasp on Leah’s shoulder tightening. Leah can’t help but to laugh a little, too. (Toni shoots them an irritated look then goes back to watching every breath Martha takes. Shelby glances over, too, but her expression is impossible to read. And as Fatin and Leah laugh and lean into each other, Shelby averts her gaze back to the fire.)

“I think you got played, Leah,” Fatin says.

“Oh, I definitely did,” Leah agrees as Fatin lets go of Leah’s shoulder with both hands. Fatin lays her head there instead. Leah leans her cheek against the top of Fatin’s head without thinking about it. It takes Leah a moment, but she realizes Fatin’s hand is resting against her thigh (low, though, closer to Leah’s knee). And after spending all day feeling fucking horrible (and still kind of feeling like she never wants to eat again, which also happened after food poisoning incident number one), Leah will take any sort of comfort she can get. Leah hesitates for maybe ten seconds before she inches her own hand closer to Fatin’s. (Fatin’s hand, Leah can’t help but notice, is completely devoid of rings. Has been for a while, and Leah doesn’t know why she knows Fatin normally wears an assortment of rings on both hands. At least she’s still got the _zero fucks_ necklace on.)

Leah mentally tells herself to stop being such a pussy. She gingerly lays her palm over the back of Fatin’s hand, and Fatin immediately flips her hand over, links their fingers together. (Fatin doesn’t even seem to think about it.) Leah’s eyes dart over to Shelby, still sitting with her knees drawn to her chest, eyes on the fire. If Leah and Fatin’s sudden physical closeness bothers their recently-exposed bigot, she doesn’t say so, doesn’t even send a dirty look. (And Leah can’t see Toni or Martha without lifting her cheek off Fatin’s head, and she doesn’t really care enough to see if Toni’s sending them funny looks or not.)

Time starts passing strangely. Too fast and too slow simultaneously. (Leah knows, because occasionally, she lifts Fatin’s hand, fingers still entwined with her own, and checks the watch on her wrist. Fatin never objects to it, never says anything about Leah checking the time.)

“We should think about getting some sleep,” Fatin yawns (sometime shortly after 1 in the morning). “Had a long day, you know.”

“But Martha –” Leah protests.

“I’ll stay up,” Shelby pipes up, scaring the shit out of Leah. (She’d forgotten Shelby was there and conscious, even though Shelby has been right in her line of sight at almost all times for the last couple hours.) “I’m keeping the fire going, anyway,” Shelby says. “You two sleep. I’ll let you know if anything goes wrong.”

Fatin’s head lifts off Leah’s shoulder (but she doesn’t take her hand back, not yet). Fatin’s got a slightly soured look on her face as she studies Shelby.

“Oh, come on,” Shelby scoffs. “You don’t really think I’d let anything bad happen to Martha. Or anyone.”

(Well, Shelby _did_ force Toni to take the pill that saved her life earlier. And she’s never been anything but kind to Martha. Even if she’s been acting shady as fuck. Even if she’s a bigot.)

Fatin sighs, “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” and now her hand slips free of Leah’s. (And Shelby notices. And Leah notices that Shelby notices.) Even so, Fatin’s hand slides across Leah’s thigh on her way to lying down for the rest of the night. (Right next to Leah. She doesn’t scoot over or anything, just turns her back and settles onto her side.) Fatin’s breathing evens out quickly, and that leaves Leah completely alone with Shelby. (She checks. Toni fell asleep somewhere along the way, clinging to Martha. Nora, Rachel, and Dot are all still solidly out.)

“You should sleep,” Shelby says softly. Even though Leah just determined that they’re the last two up, it takes her a second to figure out that Shelby’s talking to her.

“Huh? I’m fine,” Leah dismisses. She fidgets with the zipper of her (Fatin’s, but still, Leah’s wearing it) jacket. Shelby’s eyes don’t leave Leah’s face, and now they’re in some kind of unspoken staring contest. “I slept on and off half the day,” Leah reminds when Shelby refuses to look away first. “I’ll live.”

“Look, Leah –”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Leah cuts in.

“How did you know what I was going to say?”

Leah presses her lips together, motions in Toni’s direction. “What else would you bring up?” Leah asks. “And I don’t really want to hear it, so. Save your breath.”

“It’s more complicated than you think,” Shelby says.

“Yeah, I bet. Still not really interested in hearing it,” Leah replies. She slides herself down to the sand, because apparently, her only way out of a conversation with Shelby about her deeply-held homophobic beliefs is (pretending to be) going to sleep instead. She closes her eyes, lying on her side facing Fatin’s back, and she breathes as evenly as possible while listening for any indication that Shelby’s moving. (Shelby doesn’t move except to prod at the fire.) Leah’s let off the hook only God knows how long later, when she hears Dot stir then tell Shelby to go the fuck to sleep.

“I’m good,” Shelby insists.

“You haven’t slept all fucking day or night,” Dot argues. “The sun’s going to come up soon. Just get a couple hours of sleep. I’ll watch everyone. I actually feel half-decent now.”

When Shelby concedes, Leah falls asleep for real. (And when Leah wakes up later in the morning, her forehead is pressed against the center of Fatin’s back. At least Leah managed to keep her limbs to herself in her sleep, but still, when she rolls onto her back and locks eyes with Dot, it’s a little awkward.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I really appreciate all of your kind words. Or you can always find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.
> 
> Also, I may have a surprise for you very soon, so stay tuned.


	5. 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I dropped a new fic in the middle of last night. That was my surprise for you all - it's called "and we are here (but i already miss you)" and it's set 6 years after the island, so if you haven't already, maybe go check it out. And I also decided I would spoil you all and drop this chapter for you, too. You're welcome lol. Hope you enjoy it.

Leah’s been in Fatin’s house before. They’d all gathered here shortly after they returned to the contiguous United States, once they were released from that bunker. (Fatin, unsurprisingly, lives in the largest home of them all, Shelby included, and they all had to catch connecting flights out of SFO anyway – and it just worked out.) Fatin’s parents and brothers made themselves scarce, giving the Unsinkable Seven (and every time they’re in a room altogether, Nora’s absence is glaringly obvious, the painful elephant in the room they all dance around) time alone in a semi-normal environment. (Semi-normal because Fatin basically lives in a fucking Barbie Dreamhouse.)

The memory of that day, the first day the seven girls had to themselves again since being “rescued,” rises in the back of Leah’s mind as she parks along the curb, too afraid to park in the driveway. Leah’s running under the assumption that Mr. and Mrs. Jadmani have no idea she’s about to show up on their doorstep. She checks her phone, thinking maybe Fatin would’ve texted her, but still nothing. So Leah steels herself and walks up to the door, jabs the doorbell with her knuckle. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, tries not to gnaw on her lower lip as she waits.

(She isn’t sure what the best outcome could be. Mrs. Jadmani answering the door? Mr. Jadmani? One of Fatin’s brothers? Fatin’s drunk ass?)

The door swings open, and Mrs. Jadmani looks confused for half a second before she places Leah’s face. “Leah,” she says, confidently, and Leah nods slowly. Mrs. Jadmani thrusts her hand out, and Leah shakes it before she knows what’s happening.

“Um. Mrs. Jadmani. I kind of, uh – well, Fatin knew I was coming, and –”

“You’re all good, dear,” Mrs. Jadmani assures Leah while sweeping her inside. “Fatin’s in her room. Go right along, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

“I – thank you.”

(Mr. Jadmani is nowhere to be seen, but the car Leah knows belongs to him was visible when she pulled up. And it’s only, like, 8:30, so Leah doubts Fatin’s brothers are in bed already, but it’s possible, she supposes. She doesn’t see them on her way to Fatin’s room, either, and the rest of the bedroom doors in the hall are pulled shut.)

Leah knocks. She’s not nearly stupid enough to just walk in. She leans her ear close to the door when it doesn’t open within twenty seconds, straining to hear anything. She knocks again, a little harder, waits. Just as she’s about to call Fatin’s name or try the doorknob, it swings open.

“Shit,” Fatin blurts. “You actually came.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Leah asks. Her eyes do a quick onceover of Fatin. She can’t stand without leaning into the doorframe for support. She’s not in the clothes she’d worn to school. No, she’s going for comfort. (Her sweatpants are probably Gucci or some shit, though. And Leah’s pretty sure Fatin isn’t into sports, so the baggy Dodgers T-shirt more likely than not did not originally belong to her. Leah can’t be sure, but Fatin probably stole it off of some dude she’s fucked. Who’s Leah kidding? Fatin definitely stole it off one of her men of the week. A gold chain disappears beneath the neckline of the shirt, and Leah knows it’s the _zero fucks_ necklace.)

“I thought you were bluffing,” Fatin says. (She speaks a lot more coherently than Leah had been expecting. What did she do? Fake it on Instagram Live? Chug water and miraculously flush all the alcohol from her system? Or maybe she finally just regained control over her speech pattern, because her words only slur a little.) “I guess I owe Dot five bucks.”

“I was, um…worried?”

Fatin’s eyebrows raise. (They continue standing in her doorway. Fatin doesn’t invite Leah in, and Leah sure as hell doesn’t ask.) “About what?” Fatin asks.

“You,” Leah says. “Why else would I have – I mean, shit, Fatin you were on Instagram Live and…you know.”

Fatin’s eyes roll, like Leah’s being overdramatic. “It was, like, five minutes,” Fatin dismisses. “Then Dot called, and –”

“Dot called because I told her what you were doing,” Leah admits.

“Yeah, she told me.”

Now Leah doesn’t know what to say, so they stand in the doorway and stare at each other. (Leah knows she’s wearing her confusion openly, but Fatin does that obnoxious thing where she shuts everything down, and her face betrays nothing about what she might feel.)

“Okay,” Leah says. “So are you good?”

Instead of answering, Fatin grabs Leah’s arm and yanks her into her bedroom. Leah stumbles, would’ve fallen if Fatin’s grasp wasn’t so fucking tight. The door shuts. (The lock clicks.) Leah takes this to mean that Fatin is not good, and God, where’s Dot when you need her? (Settling shit in Texas, apparently.) Dot’s always been better at knowing the right thing to do as far as Fatin is concerned. When Fatin had her little flip out after Nora –

No. That one’s not fair.

“Fatin?” Leah says when the silence stretches too long, when Fatin’s fingers dig into her arm so hard, it’s starting to hurt. Leah winces. “Fatin, you’re hurting me.”

Fatin lets go. Throws herself down onto the bed, presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. (Leah still hasn’t figured out how drunk Fatin might be.) Leah stands awkwardly in the middle of Fatin’s room, fiddling with the sleeve of her hoodie, trying to figure out if Fatin’s about to cry.

“Do you…want to talk?” Leah asks.

“Do I fucking look like I want to talk?” Fatin snaps. (Yeah, she’s definitely not crying.)

Leah inhales sharply. “Yeah, maybe I should show myself out –”

“You come all the way here just to fucking leave five minutes later?”

“It’s, like, a five minute drive?” Leah says weakly. “It’s not like it’s super inconvenient for me. I just wanted to make sure you were okay –”

“Dot fucking made sure I was okay. You just –”

“Dot only knew because I told her,” Leah interrupts.

“You just run to Dot with my shit instead of, like, fucking asking me, huh?” Fatin challenges. She sits up on her bed, but she has to brace herself on her hands to stay upright. “Couldn’t just ask me if I was okay on your own?”

“Well, it’s kinda fucking obvious you’re not okay,” Leah says. “Getting drunk on a fucking Monday night then going live on Instagram for your, what? Thirty thousand followers to see? Or is your number of followers even higher than that, now that we can’t seem to escape the media’s attention? You only stopped your drunken Instagram Live because Dot intervened. Like, you could seriously be on the fucking homepage of TMZ or some shit tomorrow if the wrong person saw that. And with at least thirty thousand followers? You can almost guarantee someone with connections saw it.”

(Neither says it, but Leah knows they’re both thinking about the full-on meltdown Toni had in the middle of a Walmart, because someone who worked for _Us Weekly_ witnessed it. The rest of the Unsinkable Seven – minus Martha – only knew it happened because it was splattered all over the internet the next day.)

“Maybe I don’t care,” Fatin says, but Leah spots the flicker of doubt in her eyes. (Fatin probably hadn’t thought about fucking nosy-as-hell reporters and celeb trash sites.)

“You must not,” Leah continues, waving her hand around, “because you fucking kissed me on the bike path where anyone could’ve taken our picture – or a fucking video – and then the media would talk about the _Unsinkable Seven’s lesbian lovers_ for the next year or until Toni and Shelby figured their shit out and went public with it.”

Fatin’s on her feet, fast. She’s not entirely steady, swaying slightly, but she has no problem getting in Leah’s face. (Leah straightens her back out. She’s got an inch or two on Fatin when Fatin’s not in heels, and Leah’s going to make sure that Fatin knows it.) And Fatin straight up reeks of alcohol, like maybe she’s been drinking since the minute she got home. (Maybe she has been.)

“Fuck you,” Fatin hisses. Her gaze is piercing, but Leah doesn’t look away, doesn’t back down. (Besides, Leah’s taller. What’s Fatin going to do? Push her? Oh no, Leah might land on her ass on Fatin’s super luxurious carpet. What ever would she do then?)

“No, fuck you,” Leah retorts. She doesn’t really push Fatin. (She’s learned that lesson, thank you very much.) More like Leah presses her fingertips against Fatin’s chest and puts just enough force behind it to nudge Fatin back out of her space for a half a second. Fatin’s jaw clenches, and Leah is positive she’s about to be knocked on her ass. She braces herself for it. Fatin seizes a fistful of Leah’s hoodie, and Leah flinches prematurely, thinking maybe Fatin’s going to knock her teeth out instead.

If Fatin reeks of alcohol (which she really does), she definitely tastes like it. (Overwhelmingly so.) Fatin continues to hold onto her fistful of Leah’s hoodie, her knuckles pressing into the center of Leah’s chest as Fatin pushes herself as close as she can get without letting go. (And Leah starts to wonder how things go with Fatin’s men of the week, or maybe this is a special occasion just because Fatin’s pretty drunk, but Fatin goes right for it with the tongue, and – oh, wait, Leah already knew that from before. Never mind. But Fatin is a lot sloppier when she’s drunk compared to when she’s high.) And for the second time today (and fourth time overall), Leah’s kissing Fatin Jadmani. (In her house. While her family – or at least her mother – is home. While Fatin is drunk as shit.)

Leah hums against Fatin’s lips, can’t quite break free. (Fatin can be fucking persistent, apparently.) Leah presses both of her hands into Fatin’s stomach and pushes until Fatin relents, stumbling back when she releases her hold on Leah’s hoodie.

“Fatin, what the fuck was that?” Leah demands. (It’s so hard to resist the urge to swipe the sleeve of her hoodie across her mouth. And Leah wasn’t really that interested in finding out whatever Fatin was drinking, but now she has an idea of what it might’ve been.) Fatin doesn’t seem to have an answer for Leah. She falters, waves her hands around while she searches for an answer, then settles for pressing her lips together and shrugging.

“At least no one could’ve seen it and snapped a pic unless they’ve got, like, a high powered telescope aimed right at my bedroom window,” Fatin says. It’s such a ridiculous thing to say (and Leah’s looking for anything to distract her from the hard thumping in her chest) that Leah busts out laughing. A smile flickers on Fatin’s face, but as Leah stops laughing, she realizes Fatin’s eyes are shiny, and before she can say anything, the tears spill over. Fatin collapses onto her bed again, hiding her face in her hands as her body shakes with every silent sob.

“Fatin,” Leah exhales. She walks over, stopping just shy of taking a seat beside Fatin because Fatin’s arm shoots out, her hand trembling.

“Stop. Do not – do not make this fucking worse, Rilke.”

Leah knocks Fatin’s arm out of the way, sits next to her on the bed. “Shut up,” Leah says. She lifts her arm, and as expected, Fatin falls into her. And perhaps the biggest (second biggest?) twist of the night is that Fatin calms down almost right away once Leah’s arms are around her. She pulls it together with alarming speed (but doesn’t move out of the embrace).

Just as Leah’s about to ask if she’s alright, Fatin says into Leah’s chest, “So how late can you stay?”

*

“The silence is killing me, y’all,” Shelby sighs.

“Shelby,” Toni warns. She squeezes Shelby’s knee, and Shelby just lays her hand over Toni’s.

“Maybe a few rounds of Never Have I Ever would…well, I guess it won’t raise everyone’s spirits, but it’s something to do.”

(It’s been eight days since Nora died. It’s been an entire week since Fatin finally snapped in a rather spectacular fashion. Leah knows, because Leah has been tasked with taking over tracking the days that pass by in Nora’s journal. The journal Nora had let her borrow. And Leah has searched over and over for some indication of what Nora was apologizing for, who she was talking about in relation to manipulating the island situation, but Leah finds no evidence within its pages. And there’s nothing Leah can do about feeling like she’s being watched constantly, except try to hold it together like the rest of them. The eight – _fuck_ , the _seven_ of them are the most important thing right now. Leah reminds herself of that over and over. She’s right. Something is going on. She has _been_ right this entire time. But her friends need her. They need her, and they need her to keep her shit together. _They need me_.)

“You know what would be something to do?” Rachel snaps. (Her first words in at least seven hours. Her last ones were, “Can you all shut the fuck up?”) “Shutting the fuck up and going to sleep.”

“Guys,” Dot says, aiming her warning stare mostly at Shelby.

“Shelby’s right,” Fatin says. “I can’t just fucking sit here in silence anymore.”

“Rachel really needs to sleep, still,” Martha points out. (Rachel’s not in immediate danger of bleeding out anymore. Yeah, cauterizing that wound…not the most fun thing Leah has ever witnessed and/or participated in. And that was with Rachel totally unconscious. But they’re still watching for infection – God, they need Nora. Nora always knew random-but-helpful trivia – apparently for a reason, but Leah can’t find it in her to hold that against Nora right now. But how should they know if Rachel’s developing a nasty infection or not? The wound looks nasty as it is. It’s a fucking field amputation, basically. How much nastier could it get?)

“We can move,” Shelby offers. “I just – I cannot stare at all of your sad faces anymore.”

“You can’t stare at _our_ sad faces?” Rachel yells. “Try losing your fucking sister!”

“Okay,” Dot says sharply. “We don’t need to –” (Eat each other alive. That’s what she wanted to say. It’s what she would’ve said before the shark attack. Leah can tell by the way Dot’s sentence ends abruptly.) “Fight with each other,” Dot says carefully. ( _We need each other, more than ever probably, so no more fucking fighting_. She doesn’t say it, but they all know it.)

“Never Have I Ever shit in my own pants,” Toni says. Leah slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle a wave of giggles as Martha sends Toni the most exaggeratedly betrayed look ever.

“That’s a low blow, Toni, even for you,” Martha says. Toni just snickers and hands Martha a can of water. (All they have left. No more alcohol. They poured the last of it over Rachel’s arm and hoped for the best.)

“Drink up, Marty,” Toni says.

“Fuck,” Leah groans. She grabs her own can, drinks, as a bunch of confused eyes land on her. “I was five, okay?” she says. “And I was in the mall, and – you know what? I’m not telling that story.”

“Never Have I Ever fucked anyone in the woods,” Fatin says. All of their eyes widen as both Toni and Shelby drink. “You motherfuckers,” Fatin gasps.

“You haven’t?” Toni questions. “What? You don’t go camping, Fatin?”

“Fuck no,” Fatin scoffs. “I’m not going to fuck anyone in the great outdoors. I have standards. And that sounds like a good way to get a wicked UTI.”

“Sometimes you get desperate,” Toni replies.

“Never Have I Ever kissed a girl,” Shelby says.

“Oh, come on. How basic can you get?” Toni complains. “I don’t think we have to drink for this round. They all know that we already have.” She grins as Shelby playfully shoves at her, and while they’re being gross in that very specific new-couple way, both Leah and Fatin drink. “Ooh, shit,” Toni says, grabbing Shelby by the wrists to stop her from trying start tickling her. “Do tell.”

“I’d rather not,” Leah says flatly at the same exact time that Fatin says, “Yeah, no.”

“Fucking lame asses,” Toni mutters. “What fun is it if you don’t explain?”

“I go to parties,” Fatin says. “Shit happens. Next.”

“How did I become the straightest person on this island?” Dot questions. “You know, with my _cargo pants_ and all.”

“I’m straighter than you,” Rachel grunts, and they all do their best not to laugh their asses off.

“Leah, you still haven’t given us an explanation,” Toni says. “And you refused to tell us about the time you shit your pants in the mall, so you don’t get another pass. At least Fatin’s story makes sense. So what’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have a story or an excuse,” Leah says. “I’m bi. Fuck off.”

Toni’s eyebrows raise. (Shelby doesn’t look surprised. And neither does Dot.)

“Never Have I Ever gotten arrested,” Dot says. Toni drinks. _Martha_ drinks, and all their jaws fall open. (Leah’s more than grateful for the quick diversion. Fatin won’t look in her direction.)

“I was with Toni,” Martha says. “I couldn’t talk my way out of it.”

“Best night of our lives,” Toni says. She knocks her can of water against Martha’s. “But really? The rest of you – nothing?”

They all shake their heads. (“I know how to not get caught,” Dot boasts.) Martha and Leah exchange a glance, and when Martha doesn’t offer up the next Never Have I Ever, Leah sighs heavily. “Never Have I Ever fucked anyone over the age of thirty.”

She expects to be the only one to drink. To her right, Fatin empties out her can, swaps it for another one nonchalantly. Like it doesn’t matter. (“We’re gonna be getting up to piss all night long,” Toni whispers to Shelby, but everyone fucking hears her.)

“Who’s the oldest guy you’ve fucked?” Dot asks, pointing straight at Fatin. “And don’t lie.”

“I don’t know. He was, like, thirty seven,” Fatin dismisses. “His hair was more gray than not.” She smirks. “He was still hot, though. And the sex was good. Definitely cracks my _top five best orgasms of my life_ list.”

“You have a list?” Toni questions.

“A mental one,” Fatin says. “You don’t even get to judge me. You and your girlfriend are fucking in the woods every day while the rest of us are out here, not getting any fucking action.”

“No one’s stopping you,” Toni laughs. “Leah just said she’s bi. Make a fucking move, Fatin. Maybe you’ll stand a chance.”

Leah grimaces, not daring to look over at Fatin as Dot loses her shit and spills water all down the front of her shirt. (“You guys are fucking loud,” Rachel grumbles, but Leah knows for a fact that Rachel can sleep through almost anything, so she’s awake because she wants to be. And maybe that’s enough of a win for the group today.)

“We should play truth or dare!” Shelby blurts, and as Dot exclaims, “Yes!” both Leah and Fatin shout, “No!”

“Vote,” Toni calls. “All for truth or dare?” Shelby, Dot, and Toni’s hands go into the air. Martha, Leah, and Fatin glare at them. “We can’t fucking tie,” Toni complains. “Rachel, you have to vote.”

“No,” Rachel says.

“You have to,” Toni insists. “Tiebreaker.”

(No one mentions how, if Nora was still here, there would be no tiebreaker if they evenly split. And now one mentions how, when they originally crashed, there were nine of them.)

“I vote we all go the fuck to sleep,” Rachel says. “Besides, I don’t want to see you all force Leah and Fatin to make out. That shit’s wack.”

“Thank you,” Leah mumbles.

“Fucking pussies,” Toni heckles. Shelby pushes at her again, and now they’re in another playful shoving match. (Leah’s eyes can’t roll any further back into her skull.)

“Rachel’s right,” Leah says. “We should sleep. Plenty of time to do stupid shit tomorrow. And the next day. And probably for fucking ever or until we die, whichever happens first.”

“Shit. That got dark,” Toni says.

“Goodnight!” Rachel says. She pulls one of Fatin’s jackets over her head, and honestly, Leah’s thinking about doing the same thing. At least no one will be able to call her out for blushing so furiously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Otherwise, you can find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	6. 24

**8:54 p.m.** _I’m staying at Fatin’s for the rest of the night_

Leah doesn’t wait for her mother’s response. She sets her phone on Fatin’s nightstand then walks over toward Fatin’s personal bathroom, where Fatin’s brushing her teeth with the door wide open. (God forbid she share with the rest of her family, right? Rich people.) “Hey, um, I’m not really thrilled with the idea of sleeping in, like, jean shorts,” Leah says. “So I’m gonna need to borrow something if you don’t want me sleeping in my underwear.”

Fatin spits her mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. She rinses her mouth out and swallows two Advil before she bothers to look over at Leah. “Help yourself?” Fatin says. “Or sleep in your underwear. I don’t care.”

“Right.”

Leah strips off her shorts, flings them toward the wall where her shoes are. She pulls the hoodie over her head, too, drops it to the floor next to the side of Fatin’s bed that Leah plans on claiming.

“Other side,” Fatin calls from the bathroom the moment that Leah’s ass touches the mattress. “That side’s mine.”

Leah rolls her eyes then shifts to the other side of the bed. (They don’t talk about the fact that they’re about to be sharing the same mattress. Or the same sheets. Or, technically, body heat. What’s the point? They slept on the same beach for how long? Nearly three months? What’s one night in Fatin’s bed while Fatin is growing increasingly sober and increasingly irritated about it?)

“You good?” Leah asks as the bathroom light flips off. “Feeling okay?”

“I guess we’re gonna find out,” Fatin replies. The other side of the bed dips down under Fatin’s weight. “Don’t worry. I can hold my liquor, Leah. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

Leah doesn’t know what to say to that. Instead of saying something about Fatin’s concerning (relatively) new bad habit, Leah blurts, “Can you hand me my hoodie? It’s on the floor next to you.”

Fatin leans over, snatches up the hoodie, and tosses it onto Leah’s chest. (Leah doesn’t even put it on, just kind of shoves it into the middle of the bed, as if it’s going to be an effective barrier between her and Fatin.) “Goodnight,” Fatin says. And that’s that. Except no, it’s not, because right as Leah’s falling asleep (Fatin’s bed is comfortable as fuck. Leah’s never given too much thought about being rich, but shit) Fatin says, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Leah grunts. “Do what?” she asks gruffly. “Go to sleep? Just close your eyes. It’ll happen.”

“You snarky bitch,” Fatin snorts. “No. Not that.”

“Then what?”

Fatin falters. “Being fucking normal again.”

“We aren’t normal.”

“Well, we have to fucking act like it. And I can’t – I don’t think I can handle it. Right now my parents have eased up on all the cello shit, but that’s just because they sent me to, like, fucking die on an island and didn’t know it until after. And those three months on the island – with no fucking cello and no fucking responsibilities outside of just keeping myself alive? I shouldn’t feel grateful for that. I shouldn’t hate the idea of returning to who I used to be.”

“Use it as a chance to start over,” Leah mumbles. “Ow! What the fuck?”

“Don’t fall asleep while I’m talking.”

“That was my fucking tit!”

“Good. It was supposed to be,” Fatin says. “Are you awake now?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Leah says indignantly, rubbing at her chest. “Jesus.”

“I was saying, like, serious shit, Rilke, and you’re over here falling asleep.”

“I had a long fucking day, okay?” Leah replies. “I forgot how fucking exhausting school is.”

“Did you get stared at all day?” Fatin questions. “I mean, I’m used to being stared at…but not like this.”

“I don’t know,” Leah mutters. “I spent all day staring at my phone, so. If people were staring at me, I didn’t catch it.”

“I mean, I _am_ the hottest member of the Unsinkable Seven. But even so. The staring was excessive.”

Leah snorts, and then Fatin’s laughing (but Leah knows Fatin means that wholeheartedly, and maybe she’s right, but Leah wouldn’t admit that even if she was held at gunpoint). “Oh, shut the fuck up,” Leah says.

“Who’s hotter than me? Please. Do share.”

“Toni.”

“You lying-ass bitch.”

Leah laughs uncontrollably, pressing her face into the pillow to drown the sound out. (She can’t see Fatin, but she thinks she’s still laughing, too.) “Okay, sorry,” Leah breathes, still struggling for air. “Sorry. I derailed your serious moment.”

“I think technically I derailed it by hitting you in the tit,” Fatin replies. “It’s no big deal.”

“No, maybe we should talk about –”

“How you obviously have the hots for Toni?”

“Okay, I do not. Don’t even go there.”

“You just said she’s hotter than me.”

“I –” (Well, Leah technically did just say that, didn’t she? And if she backtracks now…) “I did say that,” Leah concedes. “But I’ve kissed you four times, and I’ve kissed Toni zero times, so.”

“Technically, you kissed me once,” Fatin says. “And I kissed you the other three times.”

Leah grunts. ( _Technically_ , that’s correct. Leah only had the balls to kiss Fatin when she was high as fuck.) “We’re lucky the others never said _Never Have I Ever kissed anyone on this island_. We’d have some explaining to do if we were the only two to drink after Toni and Shelby.”

Fatin laughs, and it’s so easy to let it be a joke. All of it. (Even the two times just today that they kissed immediately after Fatin cried over not being able to wipe all of their experiences on the island out of their minds and get right back to normal.) “Oh, shit,” Fatin exclaims. She shifts around, and Leah watches her grab her phone off the nightstand. “I almost forgot. I got the details about that party this Friday.”

“The one I told you I don’t want to go to?”

“Exactly. I’m texting you the details.”

“And I’m not going.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” (Leah can hear Fatin pouting even if she can’t see it.)

“I’d rather be stranded on a deserted island as part of some twisted woman’s science experiment than go to that party.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t,” Leah admits. “Fine. Whatever. Just don’t kiss me at the party or my mother’s going to have a heart attack when she sees the news, because someone will totally film us.”

“Oh, are your parents not cool with that sort of thing?”

“They don’t know my shit,” Leah says. “They don’t even know about Jeff, so they definitely don’t know that I’m bi.”

“What? How? You never told them about that motherfucker?”

“They know my boyfriend dumped me,” Leah says. “They don’t know my boyfriend was a thirty six year old bestselling author. So I’m pretty sure if my mother sees a picture of you and me kissing, she’ll flip out because she’s the one who’s letting me sleep over here tonight.”

“I’m totally kissing you at that party.”

“Don’t even fucking try it.”

“Try to stop me, Rilke.”

“I’ll fucking fight you, Jadmani.”

They both laugh wearily.

“God, what the fuck’s wrong with us?” Fatin says.

Leah doesn’t have an answer.

*

They bury Nora the day after she dies, and they aren’t so sure that this won’t be her permanent resting place. The significance is not lost on them. Rachel resists every step of the way (“I’m not leaving her on this fucking island!”), but Dot talks her down. They really have no other options. (And if her body disappears the way Jeanette’s did, Leah will know why. They intentionally bury her somewhere the tide can’t reach.) Martha drags Marcus over for the funeral, which seems wrong on some level, but no one questions it aloud. (That stupid fucking mannequin has kind of become like their family, too.)

They’d sang for Jeanette. They don’t have it in them to sing for Nora. (They’re too exhausted. Too upset. They’re exhausted because they’re upset.)

“We should say a few words,” Shelby says quietly. Leah’s eyes travel around the circle that they’ve all formed around the grave. Shelby clutches onto Toni’s hand, Toni clutches onto Martha’s. (When they all became best buddies, Leah doesn’t know. To be fair, she’s been a little preoccupied lately.) Leah looks to Dot and Fatin, standing shoulder to shoulder, both still covered in dried blood. (Fatin has it way worse, though. The front of her jacket absorbed a shit ton of blood – an unbelievable amount, really. Dot hasn’t even washed Rachel’s blood from her hands yet.)

“Are you offering to start?” Rachel questions. (Her voice lacks any bite. She mostly sounds exhausted. She’s only conscious because they’ve been drugging her to manage the pain, watching their pill supply deplete rapidly.) Except for Rachel, they all only knew Nora for twenty three days. (And they shared some of the worst days of their life with her. They know her better from spending twenty three days in the wilderness with her than they know some of their own relatives, even though they’ve had years and years with them. They should all be able to say something – give an entire speech, even – and fucking mean every word of it.)

“We’re all going to fucking die here,” Fatin says flatly. Six pairs of startled eyes land on her.

“Fatin,” Dot says weakly. She reaches for Fatin’s hand, but Fatin pulls away, shaking her head.

“No. No, I mean it. We’re all really going to fucking die here. We’re just – we’re just fucking waiting it out! Why are we even – what’s even the point of trying to make it to tomorrow?” Fatin bursts. Her lips contort into what might’ve been a smile if she wasn’t making such a morbid point. “So we can do it all over again? And again? Face it. _No one_ is coming for us. This is going to be the rest of our lives, and we’re all going to end up like _that_.” Fatin motions toward the grave, and everyone except Rachel and Dot flinches. “Buried on this fucking hellhole!”

“Okay, Fatin, you have to calm down,” Dot says. She grabs Fatin by the arm, but Fatin yanks herself free immediately.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Fatin seethes. “And don’t fucking touch me.”

“Look, we just gotta keep pushing forward,” Shelby says. “We don’t know that rescue’s not coming for us. We don’t necessarily know that we’re all going to…perish here before someone finds us.”

Fatin scoffs, eyes wild, before she shouts, “We’ve buried two people in twenty four days! If we keep going like that, another two of us,” she pauses to motion between the group members, “will be in the fucking ground by day forty eight, too. _At least_.”

“Okay, we’re getting way too worked up here,” Dot says. She holds her hands out toward Fatin, slowly approaching her like she’s a rabid animal or something. “I know it’s very stressful, and – and fucking terrifying, but we need to try to hold it together –”

“Hold it together _for what_?” Fatin screams.

“Do something,” Toni mutters to Leah.

“Do – what am I supposed to do?” Leah hisses.

“Go calm her down before she runs into the fucking ocean,” Toni retorts. “Rachel’s not exactly in any shape to be saving anyone, and we don’t need another fucking shark attack.”

“What makes you think I can help her?” Leah asks. (Her eyes flick back over to Fatin and Dot. Dot’s still advancing slowly, but every step she takes toward Fatin, Fatin takes one back.)

“She helped you,” Toni points out. She shoves Leah by the shoulder in Fatin’s direction. “Go figure it out.”

Leah grimaces and starts walking over toward Dot, eyeing Fatin carefully. (Leah doesn’t know if trying to trap Fatin is a good strategy or if it’ll totally backfire. Somehow, she doesn’t see Fatin bolting into the ocean like she had two days ago. But that doesn’t mean that Fatin won’t run off into the woods and disappear for real this time.)

“We’re going to fucking die here,” Fatin says, voice breaking. Her eyes are locked squarely on Dot, as if Dot’s the only person she has to convince of this supposed truth. “We’re all going to _fucking_ die in this place, one by one, while the ones who remain gather around the graves and sing fucking Pink songs until there’s no one left.”

Dot spares a glance over at Leah, and Leah tries to send Dot the _tell me what to do_ look and just hopes Dot miraculously learns how to communicate telepathically. Dot gives Leah an almost imperceptible head shake before her full attention turns back to Fatin.

“Fatin, stop backing away,” Dot tells her. “Come on. Let’s go sit down.”

“I don’t want to fucking sit down. I want to get _out_ of here.”

“Fatin,” Leah says gently. “There’s nowhere to go.”

(And she should’ve thought that one through before saying it.) Leah’s prepared for Fatin to try to run, either up the beach or into the ocean or the woods. Fatin stops backing away, runs right to Leah instead, grabbing onto her shoulders (and nearly knocking her off her feet, nearly sending both of them to the sand).

“You have to get us out of here,” Fatin says. “We can’t just – we can’t just stay and die here. You have to do something.”

(“Man, she’s fucking losing it,” Toni mutters.

“I lost it, too,” Shelby reminds.

“Cutting your hair is one thing. Asking Leah to get us off the island? That’s crazy.”

“Toni, don’t,” Martha says.)

“Fatin,” Leah says, grabbing onto Fatin’s arms. (Fatin’s face is right in front of Leah’s, fingers digging into Leah’s shoulders. There’ll be bruises later.) “Fatin. You have to stop.”

“I can’t – I can’t fucking die like this,” Fatin whispers.

“You have to stop hyperventilating,” Leah tells her, grasping even tighter onto Fatin’s biceps. “You need to breathe, okay? We’re gonna be –”

Fatin lets go of Leah’s shoulders, seizes two fistfuls of the front of her shirt instead. “We are _not_ going to be okay, Leah. Don’t even fucking lie to me.”

“Okay!” Dot interjects. She pries Fatin’s hands off Leah’s shirt as Leah freezes. (She has no idea what else to do. No idea at all. She’s never seen Fatin like this – none of them have. An argument could be made that Fatin’s held it together the best out of all of them. Until right now.) Dot doesn’t release Fatin’s hands, and Fatin’s eyes drop to the blood dried along Dot’s hands and arms, dried on her shirt (dried on Fatin’s clothes, too). “No wonder you’re starting to lose it,” Dot says (and maybe her voice shakes a little, but Leah can’t be sure). “You look like shit, Fatin. You’re really letting yourself go. So come on. We’ll go clean up a bit. And once we’ve taken care of that, we’ll all regroup around the fire and say a few words in honor of Nora. Come on.”

Dot pulls Fatin by the hands toward the edge of the ocean, and Fatin goes along willingly. Leah watches them for a few moments, watches Dot swiftly unzip Fatin’s jacket (completely ruined by the amount of Nora’s blood that it absorbed) and push it off of her. The jacket lands in the water, starts getting carried out, but no one cares. Dot rinses her hands clean in the water then smears her wet hand through the blood dried on Fatin’s neck, repeats the action until the blood’s gone then moves to Fatin’s face.

Leah looks down at Rachel as the moment between Fatin and Dot starts to feel a little too personal to intrude on. (Leah swallows down whatever emotion may be rising in her chest. She’s kissed Fatin once, while they were both high, and neither has brought it up or acted like anything has happened since. It’s not like Leah has a claim to Fatin; it’s not like she has any right to be jealous over whatever Fatin has with Dot.) Rachel’s bundled up in what under other circumstances would be more than her fair share of Fatin’s clothing, arm wrapped in bandages from the pilot’s bag and clutched against her chest. (The opioids – which they don’t exactly have a great supply of – are doing their job well.) Rachel’s as impossible to read as ever.

“Can we move you back to camp?” Leah asks.

Rachel stares blankly up at her. “Fine,” Rachel agrees.

“Toni,” Leah says. “Will you help?”

Toni sighs. “Yeah. Whatever. Let’s just get it over with.”

Leah gets Rachel under the arms, and she thinks the drugs might be the only thing stopping Rachel from complaining about it. Toni grabs onto Rachel’s legs, and together, they carry Rachel back toward the fire, back to where they’d set up the best bed they could for her. (Considering Rachel has literally lost a hand, no one else hesitates to hand over as much of their own resources as they can spare.)

“Are you okay?” Leah asks as Rachel’s settling back in, to the best of her ability.

“No,” Rachel says flatly. “Are you?”

Leah’s teeth sink into her lower lip, and she just shakes her head. “Of course not.”

“Then why ask?”

Leah flinches. “Then can I get you anything? Water?”

“Can you bring my sister back to life?”

Leah doesn’t justify the question with an answer. She gives up, drops her ass to the sand a few feet away from Rachel. (She tries so hard not to look back over at Dot and Fatin. She tries so hard not to think about how she utterly failed to help Fatin when she needed it, how Dot swooped right in and knew what to do.) Toni, Shelby, and Martha basically move as a unit now. They sit clustered together on the other side of Rachel. (Toni and Shelby’s knees rest together, and Leah wonders what happened to Shelby’s whole Bible-banging, your-existence-is-a-sin shtick.)

“I know shit is really bad right now,” Toni says, “but would it be really wrong to tell Dot and Fatin to get a fucking room?”

“Yes,” Shelby, Leah, Martha, and Rachel all say in unison.

And now Leah can’t resist. She glances over her shoulder toward the ocean. Dot and Fatin sit in the water with their backs to the ocean, letting the water splash up to their shoulders. There’s a faint smile on Fatin’s face as Dot leans in and says something, then Fatin falls into her with laughter. (It’s strange, witnessing those two together. Their friendship is so effortless, so easy and natural, as different as they are. And maybe Leah has been gauging the dynamics of the island all wrong. They all need Dot. That much has been obvious since day one. But Dot needs Fatin more than she needs any one of the rest of them – maybe even more than she needs all of the rest of them combined. And for the first time, Leah realizes that maybe the same goes for Fatin. Maybe Fatin needs Dot the most. And that shouldn’t unsettle Leah, shouldn’t nag at her like an itch she can’t scratch.)

“I mean, they’re getting gross,” Toni complains.

“You’re gross,” Rachel snaps. Leah turns her snort into a cough, but Rachel sends her a knowing look (even though Rachel looks more exhausted than anything else).

“Leave them alone, Toni,” Martha says. “Fatin finally snapped. Let her have a moment.”

“And can you blame her for snapping?” Shelby says. (Leah watches Rachel for a reaction, but Rachel’s expression doesn’t change. The grief has etched its way into her features, maybe forever. “Stop fucking staring at me,” Rachel says, and Leah looks away.) “It’s been a rough week.”

“It’s been a rough twenty four days,” Leah corrects. She pulls her knees to her chest, tries (and fails) not to look over her shoulder at Dot and Fatin again. They’re still sitting in shallow water, leaning back on their hands, smiling at each other. (They’re way too far away for anyone to catch any parts of their conversation.) Dot pauses to rub at what Leah assumes is a spot of blood under Fatin’s lower lip, and Leah rips her eyes away.

“So should we talk about how Leah totally failed to handle Fatin?” Toni questions. (She takes both Shelby’s and Martha’s elbows to her ribs, one on each side.) “Ow!”

“At least Leah tried something, man,” Rachel grunts. “What were you three doing? Hmm? Standing there letting her flip her shit.”

Leah kind of can’t believe her ears. Is Rachel _defending_ her? (She doesn’t dare to look at Rachel again, not willing to get yelled at for staring once more.)

“What the fuck ever, man,” Toni grumbles. “You know I’m not allowed to fight with you now –”

“Oh, because I only have one hand?” Rachel challenges.

“No! Because you lost your hand literally yesterday,” Toni retorts. (She doesn’t say what they all think: _and you lost your sister, and the rest of us don’t know what to do to help you except give you all our drugs and let you hog all of Fatin’s clothes_.)

“Give me some time to heal. I’ll still kick your ass,” Rachel says. (Shelby sighs. Leah turns her attention to her shoelaces. Martha drapes herself across Marcus. Dot and Fatin don’t return from the ocean.) No one stops Toni and Rachel from bickering. In fact, it seems to be putting Rachel in a better mood, somehow. At least until Dot and Fatin come back (and maybe all their eyes linger on Fatin for a moment, like they always seem to whenever Fatin wears the absolute bare minimum clothing – or maybe it’s just Leah).

“Should we say a few words?” Dot asks once she’s settled back in, tying her soaked hair back. They all look to Rachel.

“I don’t have anything to say about her in front of all of you,” Rachel mutters. “None of you deserved her. And neither did I.” Rachel clears her throat. “All she did was try to look after me, and this is what she gets? It should’ve been me, man. She should’ve let it be me. Why couldn’t she just leave me out there?”

Leah’s eyes lock with Dot’s. The vodka is gone; they’d voted unanimously to use the rest of it to try to disinfect Rachel’s wound. So Dot grabs the nearest bottle of water and raises it.

“To Nora,” Dot says. “None of us deserved her.”

“To Nora,” they all echo. Dot takes the first sip, and they pass the bottle around the circle. Rachel falls asleep shortly after. Then Martha, with her arm and leg flung across Marcus’s body. Toni and Shelby set up a place to sleep next to each other, and by extension, next to Martha. (Leah still doesn’t get what happened to suddenly make Toni and Shelby best friends. Well, apart from the shark attack, which really put some things in perspective, but still, they were acting weird before that.) Dot exhales, says something about how exhausting just being alive is, then passes out with her head in Fatin’s lap.

And then Leah’s alone with Fatin and the fire.

“You feeling okay?” Leah asks. She prods at the fire, just to have something to do.

“Better than earlier,” Fatin says. (Her hand’s resting on Dot’s head.) “You?”

“I didn’t flip my shit today,” Leah replies. “I guess I’m not too bad under pressure, huh?”

Fatin huffs, but she nods. “All things considered? Yeah. Especially if what Nora said is true.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Fatin shakes her head. “I don’t know.” Her eyes dart around the beach, to the woods, before they rest on Shelby. “So you were right. You just had the wrong person. I’m surprised you haven’t bitched us all out for thinking you were just paranoid or totally fucking crazy.”

Leah grunts. “I would’ve. Believe me, you all would’ve gotten an earful if that shark hadn’t – you know.”

“Yeah.” Fatin pauses. “But you’re good now? No more trips into the ocean?” (Fatin literally lost it today and she’s still worrying about Leah. Leah tries not to read too far into that, but it does kind of sting.)

“I’m surprised you didn’t try it out today,” Leah teases.

“I thought about it,” Fatin admits. She leans as close to Leah as she can without risking disturbing Dot. “But I’m not that fucking crazy.”

Leah laughs hard, shoves at Fatin’s shoulder. Fatin grins. (She looks worn out in a way that Leah hasn’t seen before, not even when they were all suffering from the horrors that the mussels unleashed on them.)

“Dot really came through for you,” Leah says.

“She comes through for all of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I love you all, and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Otherwise, find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	7. 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm sticking to the daily updates, it appears. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and just remember, in my house, we hate Jeff, in case that isn't super clear otherwise.

Leah doesn’t know where the fuck she is at first. An alarm keeps blaring, but it isn’t Leah’s phone. She reaches out, freezing when her hand hits a body. Then it all comes back, and Leah grabs onto Fatin’s arm and shakes until Fatin stirs.

“Shut that alarm off,” Leah says.

“Fuck off,” Fatin mumbles. (She shuts the alarm off.)

“We have to get up,” Leah says. “I have to go home. Change. Get my shit for school.” Leah throws the covers back, gets to her feet. She spots her hoodie, still resting in the center of the bed, and she yanks it out from under Fatin’s body then pulls it on. (It smells like Fatin. Leah wishes she would’ve just left it on the floor.) Leah walks over to the other side of the bed, crouches down so her face is in front of Fatin’s. “We have school,” Leah says sharply, startling Fatin awake. “Get up.”

“I feel like shit.”

“I wonder why. C’mon. Get up. Take some Advil. I’ll drive you, but we need to get going.”

Fatin groans but starts getting up as Leah pulls her shorts and shoes on. While Fatin rushes to get ready, Leah sits on her bed and checks her phone.

**Dot, 6:10 a.m.** _So is she good or what?_

**6:35 a.m.** _Define good_

“Be honest,” Fatin calls from the doorway of her bathroom. “Do I look hungover?”

Leah blinks. “Yes.”

Fatin sighs. “Okay, whatever. Let’s just go.”

Fatin leads the way out of the house. (They don’t pass by her parents or her brothers. Again, they’re nowhere to be found.) Leah checks her phone as they’re getting into her car.

**Dot, 6:39 a.m.** _Not dead?_

**6:58 a.m.** _She’s not dead_

**Dot, 6:59 a.m.** _I’ll call her tonight_

“Put your phone away and drive,” Fatin scolds. She snatches Leah’s phone out of her hand, and before Leah can fight Fatin from across the center console, Fatin locks the phone and drops it into the cup holder (and Leah relaxes). Leah drives to her house (which Fatin has been in exactly one time) and rushes to get ready and grab her things, assuming they’re going to roll in late no matter how fast she moves. Fatin waits in the living room with the dog, and Leah’s never been so glad that both her parents work early. “Buster likes me better than you,” Fatin announces when Leah emerges from upstairs.

“What can I say? He likes pathetic people,” Leah jokes.

“Wow. Rude.”

“Come on. We’re already late.”

“No one’s going to yell at two members of the Unsinkable Seven for not showing up to school on time,” Fatin dismisses. “We spent three months worrying about more important things. Like not dying. No one else at that school can truly understand that.”

Fatin touches up her makeup as Leah drives. (And Leah really tries not to watch Fatin out of the corner of her eye.) Leah rushes into her classroom right as the bell rings, which means she gets stuck sitting in the front row, but it’s better than getting her ass chewed out for strolling in late without an excuse. (At least, without an excuse that isn’t tied to her experience as a member of the Unsinkable Seven.)

Leah pays closer attention today, learns that Fatin is right. People are staring. All day. They think they’re being subtle, think they look away before Leah catches them, but they’re definitely staring. She doesn’t know how she missed it yesterday, even if she did spend most of the day with her eyes glued to her phone. The staring is really fucking distracting, at least until Mrs. Wolfe clears her throat and draws all eyes to the front of the room.

“I had to do some rearranging with our schedule,” Mrs. Wolfe announces. “I’ve swapped our first novel for a brand new award winner –”

“Written by the school’s very own Jeffrey Galanis,” Eric, sitting somewhere in the back of the room, heckles, causing half the class to snicker while the other half groans. (And Leah’s blood runs cold.)

“Mr. Parker,” Mrs. Wolfe sighs. “Comments to ourselves, please.”

“The guy’s a tool,” Eric adds.

“One more outburst, you’re heading for the office,” Mrs. Wolfe warns. She starts handing out books now that Eric’s decided it’s in his best interest to shut up. Leah’s heart hammers in her throat as Mrs. Wolfe makes her way around the room. Her hands curl into fists beneath her desk, and it takes all her willpower not to let her entire body shake. Mrs. Wolfe sets her copy down on her desk, and Leah’s eyes land on the cover. (It’s so fucking pretentious. And Leah hasn’t read a single word of it yet, except for the fucking title. _The Road That Leads Backwards_. The bold lettering is superimposed over an image of a dirt path leading through a forest. Her therapist is going to have a fucking field day with this.)

Mrs. Wolfe is talking again, but Leah tunes her out. (Not really on purpose. More like she can’t focus on anything more than just the cover of this fucking book. She can’t look away from the name – _JEFFREY GALANIS_ – stamped in letters larger than the title of the book itself.) Leah forces her hands not to tremble as she flips the book over. She reaches the end of the first sentence, and every muscle in her body tenses.

_Lila Randall, an 18 year old college freshman, was only looking for an adventure._

( _Lila Randall?_ Does he think he’s being slick?)

_She didn’t expect to fall in love with her English professor._

Leah would gag if she wasn’t in a classroom full of students who wouldn’t hesitate to Instagram Live _Leah Rilke from the Unsinkable Seven’s classroom meltdown_. Her hands do shake now, mostly out of anger. (But partly out of fear.) Who the fuck does he think he is? Is this a fucking joke? Did he really write this and have it published? If the character’s name mirrors Leah’s, if the character’s a young woman who falls for an obviously older man – what _other_ details are in here, and how fucking accurate could they be? What did he _do_? (Leah spent three months in hell, and Jeff was out there fucking exploiting what happened between them? He was out there writing a fucking _book_ about _Leah_ while Leah was trying not to _die_? How could he?)

Leah stands abruptly, chair scraping against the tile. Every set of eyes in the room locks onto her, including Mrs. Wolfe. Mrs. Wolfe’s eyebrows raise. “Miss Rilke? May I help you?”

Leah snatches the book off the desk, scoops up her backpack, and flies out of the room. Mrs. Wolfe calls after her, but Leah doesn’t care. (Let her think it has something to do with the whole plane crash thing. It’s what everyone assumes anyway.)

**8:37 a.m.** _Meet me on the lawn_

Leah holds her phone in her hand as she walks briskly through the empty halls, heading for the front of the school. She waits until she gets a reply, which she knows should be almost instantaneous.

**Fatin, 8:38 a.m.** _wait seriously?_

**Fatin, 8:38 a.m.** _are you okay???_

**8:39 a.m.** _Please_

It’s probably wrong to ask Fatin to run out of the middle of her class, but Leah doesn’t know what else to do. (The thought of texting Ian instead passes through her mind, but she knows how he reacts to anything Jeff-related. And she still hasn’t answered his text from this morning asking her why she wasn’t at school yet.) Leah finally steps out of the building, inhaling deeply at the rush of fresh air. (The book is still in her hand, pressed against her stomach. She can’t bring herself to look down at it.) Leah heads for one of the picnic tables, takes a seat on the edge and watches the door for any sign of Fatin.

The three minutes it takes for the doors to swing open are the longest of Leah’s life. (Well, no. The plane went down pretty quickly but it also felt like forever. So it’s the second longest three minutes of Leah’s life.) Leah slides off the table, jogs over to meet Fatin halfway. Fatin looks more confused than anything else.

“Leah,” Fatin says. “What’s going –?” She cuts herself off as Leah slaps the book into her chest. Fatin manages to catch it before it hits the ground and flips it over, eyes skimming over the front cover, coming to a stop at the large (larger than the fucking title, even, _Jesus_ ) lettering at the bottom. ( _JEFFREY GALANIS_. Leah starts pacing, pushing her hands into her hair. She doesn’t know how to process this, doesn’t know how to process the look on Fatin’s face as she flips the book over, glares at the photograph of the author on the back.) “What the fuck is this?” Fatin demands.

Leah falters, unable to form words while Fatin’s staring at her in utter disbelief. “My new homework assignment,” Leah manages to say (but her voice fucking breaks, of _course_ it fucking breaks), and her lips twist into a pained smile. And then Leah’s laughing, and she doesn’t even know why. She motions toward the book, shakes her head. (She can’t stop laughing.) “You – you don’t even know the best part,” Leah says. “Read the – the summary.”

Fatin turns her attention to the summary. Leah watches Fatin’s jaw clench as she forces her way through the entire thing, and Leah flinches when Fatin throws the book to the pavement. “He didn’t,” she says through her teeth. (And Leah laughs again, because if she doesn’t, she’s going to cry.)

“I guess he fucking did,” Leah says. She presses her fingers against her eyes, aware that Fatin’s watching her every move. “While I was stranded on an island, being Gretchen’s fucking guinea pig, he was writing all about how he – what he – he put it in a fucking novel, Fatin. He had it _published_.” (When Leah made that _stupid_ phone call from Jeanette’s – Linh’s – real phone, when she spoke to him for, what? Twenty seconds? Was he working on this? Was he planning this from the start? God, what if he –) “I need to fucking read it,” Leah says suddenly. She lowers her hands from her face, grabs the book off the ground. “I need to know –”

“That’s definitely not a good idea,” Fatin interrupts. She grabs the book, and she couldn’t hold it out of Leah’s reach if she wanted to, so she throws it across the lawn. “You can’t go back down that rabbit hole, Leah. You can’t go back there. It doesn’t matter.”

Leah points over to where the book lays, pressing into Fatin’s space (but Fatin holds her ground, stands tall even though Leah’s got an inch or two on her). “That fucking book is _obviously_ based on me and – and – what if he – what if he wrote about –” God, she can’t say it. Not even to Fatin, but as recognition flickers in Fatin’s eyes, her face falls ever so slightly. (Fatin swallows hard.)

“You think he was dumb enough –?”

“He wrote a whole fucking book about it!” Leah screams, and Fatin tries to shush her, glancing around to see who might witness this.

“We should go,” Fatin suggests. She takes Leah’s elbow, tries to lead her toward the parking lot or maybe the bike path – somewhere away from the front of the school. (And Leah knows she shouldn’t do this right in front of the building, where anyone could see them. She knows, but she can’t bring herself to really care. Not when there’s that _book_ , maybe twenty feet away from them, and anything about her could be in it, written under the guise of fiction.) Leah’s eyes shift over to the book. “Leah, please,” Fatin pleads. Her grip on Leah’s elbow tightens. “Let’s – let’s just go sit in your car, okay?”

“No, _no_ , I need to know what he –” Leah’s voice cracks, and her eyes finally betray her and well up with tears. She tries to turn away, tries to go get that fucking book, but Fatin’s still holding her elbow, and she grabs a fistful of Leah’s shirt at her waist. (And Leah’s not above trying to twist her way straight out of her shirt in order to slip free to get that piece of shit, sorry excuse for a novel, back in her hands.)

“Leah. _Leah_. Stop. Stop! Look at me.”

Leah stops struggling, forces herself to meet Fatin’s gaze. (But her eyes want to seek out that book, laying just twenty-ish feet away in the grass. It’s calling Leah’s name. People have read this book, _other people_ know what it says, and Leah didn’t even know it existed until today, thanks to her unwanted three month stay on the island, then the week in the bunker.) Pure fury simmers in Fatin’s eyes (and Leah knows it’s not directed at her, but it’s hard to see nonetheless, makes Leah flinch a little, and now she understands how Fatin had no problem spreading her dad’s dick pic to everyone in his contacts list), but somehow, the rest of Fatin’s expression is unbearably soft and leads to the first of Leah’s tears spilling over. Fatin releases Leah’s elbows, swipes the tears away (gently, much like she’d wiped the sand from Leah’s face all those months ago).

“He isn’t worth your tears,” Fatin murmurs. (Her hand lingers against Leah’s jaw.)

“I need to know what he wrote,” Leah whispers.

“I’ll read it,” Fatin says (perhaps before she realizes what it means). Leah’s eyes widen. “If you want,” Fatin adds quickly. “Obviously, letting you read it is a terrible idea, but I could read it and fill you in. Tell you if he wrote anything…you know.”

After a long moment, Leah nods slowly. “Okay,” she exhales. She nods again, more confidently this time. “Okay, yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Fatin says. She musters up a smile for Leah’s benefit then pulls Leah into her a half-second after Leah realizes Fatin’s eyes are looking awfully shiny. Fatin’s arms lock around Leah, palms pressed flat to Leah’s back, and Leah drops her face down against Fatin’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around Fatin’s neck (and holding on for dear life). Leah inhales raggedly, tries to let herself be comforted by the flowery scent of Fatin’s (new, expensive) perfume. (She’d switched after she spent three months wearing the same one on the island, and Fatin had declared that she never wants to smell that perfume again.)

Leah’s the first one to pull back, mostly because she knows Fatin’s waiting for her to do it. Leah swipes the remaining wetness from her cheeks with the heels of her hands, trying to ignore the way Fatin’s eyes study her.

“You good?” Fatin asks. She holds onto Leah’s arms (and even though Leah’s pretty sure that Fatin hasn’t played the cello since setting foot in California again, Fatin’s been keeping her nails short – but flawlessly painted. Today, they’re a light yellow).

“Yeah. Fine. Sorry.”

Fatin shakes her head, pressing her lips together. “Okay, come on. We’re ditching.”

“What?”

Fatin waves her hand dismissively. “We’ll just tell them we both had some island-related trauma come up and no one will ask questions.” Fatin hurries to scoop the book up, tucks it safely in her backpack (out of sight, out of mind – and out of Leah’s possession).

“What are we going to do?” Leah questions.

Fatin laughs. “Does it really matter?”

*

“What did he do to you?”

Leah stirs as a shoe nudges at her side. (She heard the question, chooses to ignore it.) Leah lifts her head off of Shelby’s leg, tries to remember how she fell asleep like this in the first place. (It’s dark now, wasn’t dark when Leah first laid down. She’s pretty sure she wasn’t using Shelby’s leg as a pillow then. She’s pretty sure Toni wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with it, if Toni was awake instead of sleeping with her head on Shelby’s chest.) Leah lifts her head, rolls away from Shelby.

“What?” Leah mumbles. She doesn’t know where Fatin is exactly, not until she forces herself to sit up and examine her surroundings. (When the sun rises, it’ll be day forty nine, and after day forty nine comes day fifty, a milestone none of them is thrilled to reach.) The fire’s still going. Shelby and Toni are passed out (and as the days drag on, they get less and less concerned about PDA). Martha’s clinging to Marcus in her sleep, like she does every night. Rachel sleeps farther away than anyone else. (It’s the nightmares, as if they don’t all spring awake at any sign of trouble regardless of how close or far away Rachel chooses to sleep. But if sleeping away from the group makes her feel better, who are they to argue with her?) Fatin sits a few feet to Leah’s left – well, she’s sort of lounging back, propping herself up on her elbows, because Dot’s draped across Fatin’s stomach, jaw hanging open.

(Leah doesn’t remember when Fatin and Dot started consistently sleeping all up on each other. Maybe around day thirty five? Thirty? Around the same time that Shelby and Toni said _fuck it_ and went for it. It’s so hard to remember individual days, even though Leah’s the one tracking them.)

“Jeffrey,” Fatin says. As much as Leah doesn’t really want to stare at Fatin and Dot’s arrangement, her eyes still lift so she can glare at Fatin. “What did he do you?” Fatin repeats.

“You woke me up to ask me about my ex?” Leah grumbles. “That’s so fucking rude.”

“It’d be ruder if I asked you in front of everyone. And you never really told me, anyway.”

“Why are you even thinking about that?” Leah asks.

Fatin shrugs as much as possible without jostling Dot around. “How could I not? It’s obvious you aren’t over it, even after how many days in this hellhole? Almost fifty?”

“It’ll be forty nine when the sun rises.”

“Exactly. And he’s still fucking you up.”

“You’re fucking me up,” Leah retorts. She hesitates as Fatin’s eyebrows raise. “By not letting me sleep,” Leah mumbles lamely. “I was on wood duty all fucking day. That’s, like, the worst job. My entire body hurts. And my neck is fucking killing me.”

“Probably because you were using Shelby as a pillow,” Fatin replies. “C’mere. I’ll rub it for you.” Fatin busts out laughing at the incredulous look Leah shoots her. “Sorry. I could’ve said that in, like, a less sexual way.”

“I’m gonna stay right here, thanks,” Leah says. She lowers herself back to the sand. (Swallows hard, tries to control how fast her heart beats and fails. She thinks staring at the fire instead of at Fatin might help.)

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“You read the fucking book before I burned it,” Leah snaps. “You know what happened.”

“Yeah, but…it’s still bothering you. Maybe even more than the fact that something huge is wrong with this place.”

“I don’t need you to psychoanalyze me,” Leah says. “I’ve got plenty of time to take care of that myself.”

“Exactly. You need to talk about it.”

“I need to sleep before Rachel wakes us all up with her screaming again.”

(Maybe that’s a little mean, even if it’s true.)

“She’s been fine so far,” Fatin dismisses. “Maybe her new sleeping spot is working a miracle.”

“Trust me, it’s not. Give her another hour.”

“Can you blame her? And nice try, Leah, but I haven’t forgotten –”

“Yeah, except I don’t want to talk about him.”

“You’ll share any batshit crazy conspiracy theory with me, but the one thing I’m actually _good_ with is the one topic you avoid.”

“My theories apparently are less crazy than you all thought,” Leah retorts. “And Jeff ripped my fucking heart out. Why do you want me to relive it so badly?”

“It might help.”

Leah scoffs. “No offense, Fatin, but you said it yourself. What do you know about love?”

There’s a long pause before Fatin says, “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Whatever. If you don’t want to talk about it, I can’t make you.”

Silence settles over them. Leah rolls onto her back, stares up at the sky. (Motherfucker. She’s not going to be able to fall back to sleep now. Not while she’s very aware of the pain in her neck, thanks to using Shelby’s leg as a pillow, and not while she’s aware that Fatin’s still sitting up.)

“Do you ever sleep at night?” Leah asks.

“Yeah,” Fatin says. “Just not right now.”

“Why not?”

Fatin hums. “I don’t want to make Dorothy move.”

“Yeah, what’s up with you guys?” Leah asks. (What can she say? The opportunity presented itself.)

Fatin snorts. “You accusing me and Dot of being lesbian lovers, Leah?”

“I just asked what’s up.”

“And I asked you a question that you chose not to answer, so. I’m not gonna answer yours.”

Leah exhales heavily. “I loved him. He left. What more is there to say?”

“That he was twenty years older than you, and based on what he wrote in that book of yours, he loved you too, even though you were a kid compared to him?”

Leah grunts. “Whatever, Fatin. Like I said. I don’t want to talk about it. And I burned the book, didn’t I?”

“He might’ve handed you, like, a lifelong ticket into therapy.”

“You know what? Fuck you,” Leah spits. (She’d throw something at Fatin if Dot wasn’t asleep on her.)

“I mean, it’s been over fifty fucking days since I’ve had an orgasm,” Fatin replies. “I think I’m desperate enough by now to take you up on that offer.”

“Fuck off,” Leah says. “You have Dot.” (She doesn’t really mean to say that. It just…slips out.)

Fatin laughs hysterically. Surely she’s jostling Dot around so much with her laughter that Leah expects it to cause Dot to wake up and ask what the fuck is happening, but Dot keeps sleeping. (Dot probably feels safe enough to fall into truly deep sleep while she’s with Fatin. Leah’s mind won’t just let this thing go, will it?) “We’re not actually lesbian lovers, Leah,” Fatin snickers. “But thanks. I needed that laugh. Dot is actually straight. I know. Hard to believe. But she seems to be really into this guy back home, and I know I pale in comparison to this dude so. Whatever. I’ll get over it.” (Leah thinks that last part is a joke, but she can’t be sure, can’t quite decipher Fatin’s tone without seeing her face.)

“Don’t tell me you’ve made a move on Dot?” Leah scoffs.

“I’ve made, like, a hundred moves on Dot,” Fatin chuckles. “It’s not my fault she rejects me every time.”

Leah swallows hard. She doesn’t like the direction the conversation’s taking, knows it’s skirting too close to the move Leah made on Fatin when they were both high, back around day sixteen? (Leah’s pretty sure it’s day sixteen. They thought rescue was imminent, ate everything they could, celebrated. And here they are, going into day forty nine. If only they’d known.)

“Yeah, who could ever reject you?” Leah murmurs. (She goes as heavy on the sarcasm as possible, knowing Fatin will detect it.)

“Gay men, straight women, losers,” Fatin lists off. “The _loser_ category includes any guy that I _know_ is into women but still rejects me, just to be clear.”

“I wasn’t actually looking for an answer to that question, Fatin.”

“Well, I gave you one anyway.”

Leah doesn’t say anything back, doesn’t have anything to say back. Leah’s still mildly concerned that Fatin might suddenly raise what happened between them, like, two weeks into this whole ordeal. Leah can already hear what Fatin could say. ( _Hey, remember when we were high and we made out because you totally kissed me? We should talk about that. No, you don’t want to talk about why you kissed me? Okay, then maybe we should talk about your pedo ex-boyfriend._ ) Leah supposes it’s possible that Fatin has actually forgotten that they’ve kissed (and if she has…ouch) but also figures that’s pretty unlikely.

“You still up?” Fatin asks.

“Because you won’t stop talking, yes.”

“Oh, shut up. You love talking to me.”

(Leah grimaces, because she knows Fatin will call her out for lying if she tries to deny it. Leah’s gotten better at interacting with the other girls in a way that doesn’t make her look insane since she got confirmation from Nora that she’s _right_ , that something is wrong with this place and with the circumstances surrounding their plane’s plummet into the ocean, but Leah still spends more time with Fatin than anyone else. And Fatin knows it.)

“Not about Jeff.”

“Sore subject still? Even after almost fifty days of struggling to stay alive?” Fatin counters. “I mean, this place is horrible, but at least it sorta gives you some perspective, right? Two people have died. Rachel almost died, and now she’s down a hand. Shelby’s growing out of whatever antigay bullshit her parents fed her for seventeen years. As shitty as it is…this place is kind of freeing.”

“So what you’re getting at is that I’m the only person here who’s gotten worse, right?” Leah challenges. She sits up now, turns to face Fatin (and by extension, Dot).

“What? No! No, that’s not –”

“It is,” Leah accuses. “That’s exactly what you were getting at. I still can’t just totally move on from what happened with Jeff, and I was the only person here who seriously spiraled for the entire first month. The island has fixed everyone except me, is that it?”

“Of course not!”

“Fuck you, Fatin. Not all of us can just sleep with random guys and feel nothing about it. And I may have been acting, like, actually insane for that first month or so, but I was _right._ So seriously. Fuck you.”

“Leah, that’s not what I was trying to say at all – really? You’re just going to – okay, whatever. Fine.”

(Leah turns her back to Fatin, goes back to resting her head on Shelby’s legs. If Toni has a problem with Leah using her girlfriend’s legs as a pillow, Leah’s sure she’ll hear about it in the morning.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	8. After

They just walk. They’ll have to come back eventually since Leah’s car is still in the parking lot of the school, and Leah is Fatin’s ride (though Fatin can easily get an Uber or a Lyft or maybe call her own personal driver – if she has one – if she wants to). They stroll up the bike path (where Fatin kissed Leah yesterday – the first time – then never gave her an explanation for) where the only other people are the occasional bikers or joggers. They get a few funny looks, but Leah can’t tell if that’s because they’re two teenagers who are obviously skipping school or if it’s because they’re recognized as the Bay’s very own members of the Unsinkable Seven.

“I was doing better, you know,” Leah says. “About the whole Jeff thing. At least, my therapist said I was making progress.”

“Yeah, I could tell.”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together, but she resists the urge to ask _how_ or _why_? Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she lets that distract her.

**Ian, 10:04 a.m.** _Hey I know things are still sorta weird between us sometimes but why wouldn’t you tell me???_

Leah balks. Tell him _what_? (And that’s exactly what she asks when she texts him back.) As she waits for Ian to explain his weird-ass question, Fatin’s phone starts ringing. She looks as confused as Leah currently feels, but Fatin answers and immediately puts it on speaker.

“Dorothy! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Fatin asks. “And shouldn’t you be in school right now?”

Dot scoffs. “No. Shouldn’t you?”

“Fair point. Oh, and you’re on speaker, so say hi to Leah.”

“Great. Actually, I guess it’s a good thing you’re both there.”

Leah exchanges a confused look with Fatin before Fatin asks, “What are you talking about?”

“Like you don’t know,” Dot says.

“Except we don’t, so please, enlighten us,” Fatin replies. Leah’s phone buzzes again, and she hurries to look at it.

**Ian, 10:07 a.m.** _You and Fatin!! Duh!_

**10:07 a.m.** _What about me and Fatin?_

“Don’t play dumb, Fatin,” Dot says. “It’s so not a good look on you.”

“She’s not playing dumb,” Leah chimes in. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

“Shelby called me to ask if I knew if you two are actually an _item_ , is the word she used, or if it’s just a silly rumor, and I said, well, Fatin hasn’t said anything about suddenly shacking up with Leah. So I was like, why would you even ask me that? And it turns out you’re trending on Twitter and literally everywhere else.”

“Wait, what?” Fatin says sharply. She skids to a stop, and Leah stops walking, too. (Her stomach suddenly twists itself around, and she kinda feels like she can’t breathe.) “Why the fuck are we trending?” Fatin demands. She clicks out of the call and opens Twitter for herself. (Leah’s mind races, but her body freezes. She can feel her phone buzzing in her back pocket, most likely Ian again, about to tell her the same thing.)

“So just to be clear, it’s just a rumor?” Dot asks. “You aren’t actually together?”

“Of course not!” Leah says at the same time that Fatin scoffs, “Please, like I wouldn’t have told you the second it happened.”

“Just making sure,” Dot says warily. “I’m going to tell Shelby and have her tell everyone else that it’s just the media spreading lies.”

“Everyone else?” Leah questions. “What – what do you mean, everyone else?”

“Toni and Martha asked Shelby first, and even Rachel texted Toni to ask.”

Leah finally checks her phone again even though she kind of feels like she might pass out, right here on the bike path.

**Ian, 10:10 a.m.** _Wait so is there no you and Fatin?_

**Ian, 10:10 a.m.** _You’re all over social media. Like you’re trending_

**Ian, 10:11 a.m.** _They’re calling you “Leatin”_

“Leatin?” Leah blurts.

“Oh, yeah,” Dot laughs. (Leah had forgotten Fatin was still on the line with her.) “That’s what they’re calling you now.” (Leah _knew_ agreeing to all those interviews and documentaries was a bad idea. She _knew_ publicizing the shit out of this was going to backfire somehow, and now the world thinks she and Fatin are a _thing_ , and they’re coming up with couple names for them. And fucking Toni and Shelby _actually_ had a thing on the island, _still_ have a long distance thing going, but of course they’d manage to keep a lid on that.)

“That was fast,” Fatin replies, and she sounds kind of impressed when she should be angry. Or upset. Or something other than overly calm and mildly amused. Leah gets another text from Ian, and this one is just an image. It’s quickly followed up by a message that reads _this is what set it off_. Leah opens it and stares at it while Fatin’s conversation with Dot shifts to something else. (“Seriously, when are you and Shelby gonna move your asses out here? Oh! And I’ll ship you off to a deserted island if you don’t bring _Mateo_ with. Too soon?”)

Leah isn’t quite able to make sense of the jumble of emotions she feels as she stares at the proof that someone intruded on a private moment between her and Fatin (and then made it the rest of the world’s business, too). The picture’s only, like, an hour – maybe a little more than an hour – old because it’s them, right in front of the school, in the clothes they’re wearing right now, clinging to each other. The image is grainy, obviously shot from a distance, but it’s easy enough to recognize Fatin’s face as her chin rests against Leah’s shoulder, arms locked around her. (And maybe, now that Leah sees it with her own eyes from an outsider’s perspective, the moment looks rather intimate with the way her face is hidden against Fatin’s shoulder, with the almost protective way Fatin holds onto her.)

“This is it,” Leah announces. She holds her phone out to Fatin, motions toward the image. “This is the picture that set it off.”

Fatin squints at Leah’s phone for a long moment after telling Dot to hang on. “What?” Fatin says. “That’s fucking ridiculous. We aren’t even _doing_ anything.”

“It looked like a pretty intense hug,” Dot says.

“Did anyone ask you, Dorothy?” Fatin replies. “And this is such _bullshit_. Kristen Stewart was going around openly dating women, and all kinds of websites refused to acknowledge it. Why are _we_ being singled out when we aren’t even together?”

“Because this is just some asshole from our school plastering it all over the internet?” Leah guesses. “I bet you this image had some caption like _looks like the Bay’s two members of the Unsinkable Seven are making it official_ or whatever.”

“Actually, it was something more like _I knew something was going on between the #UnsinkableSeven’s #LeahRilke and #FatinJadmani and here’s the proof_ ,” Dot informs.

“They hashtagged Leah’s name before mine?” Fatin gasps.

“Fatin. Focus,” Dot says. “That’s not what’s important here.”

“Oh my God,” Leah blurts. “My mom’s on Twitter. If she sees this, she’s going to flip.” Leah groans loudly. “I’m gonna get my ass _handed_ to me tonight.”

“Wait, why?” Dot asks.

“I just slept over Fatin’s, like, last night,” Leah points out. “If my mom thinks something’s going on between us, she’s going to say I purposefully hid it so I could get away with – you know.”

“Shit,” Dot says. “But we both know Fatin’s parents won’t give a rat’s ass.”

Fatin snorts. “True story. They won’t even see it, probably.”

Leah shoots off a text to both her parents, figuring it’s best to preempt this. It’s a mess of a text, really, and Leah’s hands shake as she types it up. She doesn’t remember what it says five seconds after she hits send. (But it’s something like _so there’s a rumor going all around social media and I just wanted to let you know that it’s TOTALLY not true because if it was I TOTALLY would’ve told you and someone just took that picture TOTALLY out of context we’re just friends I swear on my LIFE_.) She switches back over to finally answer Ian.

**10:25 a.m.** _There is NOTHING going on between me and Fatin someone took that picture WAY out of context_

“You good?” Fatin asks, drawing Leah’s eyes away from her phone. “Your face is getting kind of…scrunchy. It’s gonna give you wrinkles.”

Leah jumps when Fatin’s fingertips caress the side of her face, and she swats Fatin’s hand away quickly. “I’m not worried about wrinkles,” Leah mutters. “I’m worried that my parents are going to ground me for life.”

“Please. You could do way worse than me. They would be _thrilled_ if you landed me as a girlfriend.”

“Can you stop? Please?” Leah bursts. “I’m trying to sort shit out with people.”

(Now the texts are rolling in. Confused cousins and aunts and uncles. Rachel finally asked Leah directly, followed by Martha. Rachel’s text is the one that finally makes Leah loosen up a little. _So you spent months on an island brooding over an old man and apparently you’re lez now??? AND FOR FATIN??? Leah come on I thought you were better than that_.)

“Geez,” Fatin mutters. “Touchy.”

Leah reads Ian’s response.

**Ian, 10:27 a.m.** _Yeah I kinda figured that’s what happened which is really shitty of whoever did that_

**Ian, 10:28 a.m.** _It came from an account without any personal info attached to it but obviously it was someone at our school_

Leah’s teeth sink into her lower lip as she debates telling him. (Before the island – well, really before Jeff – she wouldn’t have hesitated.) She decides to just go for it.

**10:39 a.m.** _Yeah well I’d just found out I have to read Galanis’s new book for English and it’s basically about me so whoever took that picture is a real dickhead because Fatin was just trying to help me_

“Okay, I’m gonna let you go,” Fatin says to Dot. “Leah looks like she’s about to flip her shit. I’ll call you tonight. You know there’s no getting rid of me, baby. Try not to miss me too much in the meantime. Love you. Bye.”

“I’m not going to flip my shit,” Leah says through her teeth.

“Honey, please,” Fatin says as she slides her phone into her pocket. “You look like you’re about to fight the next person who stares at you funny.”

“I mean, maybe this has no effect on you or your life, but this could royally fuck mine up, okay?” Leah blurts. “So I’m sorry if I’m a little –”

“Pissed off? Upset?”

“On edge.”

Fatin puts her hands on Leah’s shoulders, waits for Leah to meet her gaze before she smiles gently. “Leah. You have nothing to worry about. If your parents don’t believe you, I’ll tell them it really is just a stupid rumor. And if I have to, I can easily make up a boyfriend on the spot. I’ll just text this guy I fucked last week and ask him to pretend –”

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Leah cuts in. She exhales, relaxes under Fatin’s touch. “Thank you.”

“I won’t let your parents think we were fucking all last night,” Fatin promises. She wraps her arm around Leah’s neck, grinning, and starts walking again before Leah has a chance to tell her off.

“Right, right,” Leah says once Fatin releases her. “Just, you know, drunkenly making out. Well, you were drunk. It made me wish I’d been drunk.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “And you kissed me when you were high. So what?”

“And stranded on an island,” Leah adds. “And you kissed me _twice_ while we were both sober, so –”

“So what?” Fatin challenges. She shrugs nonchalantly, flips her hair out of her eyes. “I was excited to see another familiar face in that fucking bunker _and_ you’re the one who lied in those letters between us in the first place so Gretchen’s henchmen were expecting _something_ to happen. And yesterday morning I just – I flipped out, okay? Acting normal isn’t as easy as I expected, so sue me for seeking out a little comfort.”

Leah has nothing to say to that. (So Fatin sought _her_ out for comfort. To be fair, Leah did exactly the same thing this morning, and now they’re paying for it, thanks to one of their asshole classmates and Twitter’s obsession with the Unsinkable Seven.) They keep walking. Leah’s phone keeps buzzing in her pocket, but she’s afraid to check it, afraid her parents might’ve responded to her already. “If you end up having to convince my parents that we aren’t anything, under no circumstances are you allowed to mention that we’ve kissed. Ever. Not on the island, not off the island. Not ever. Got it?”

Fatin laughs. “Your parents would probably be cool with it if we actually were anything, Leah. I don’t know why you’re freaking out so much.”

“They won’t be cool with it if they think I hid a relationship in order to be able to spend the night at your place.”

Fatin waves her hand dismissively. “Good thing nothing’s happening then, right?”

(Yeah. Good thing.)

“I feel sorry for any sucker who tries to tie _the_ Fatin Jadmani down,” Leah jokes.

“Oh, no man will ever,” Fatin says.

(And why is that so hard to hear?)

*

The door unlocks, swings open. Leah rolls over, expression blank (mind racing). She’s expecting Faber. He’s shown up quite frequently over the last few days they’ve been trapped in this bunker. It’s not Faber, though (thank fuck). It’s Young. (At least he’s never given Leah total creeper vibes. She gets, like, very strong dad vibes from Young.)

“Leah,” Young greets. He lingers in the doorway, one hand in his pocket, a faint smile on his face. He seems relaxed. (He’s not here to deliver another letter, or take one from Leah.) “It’s time,” he says. And that’s all he needs to say for Leah to understand what he means. Leah’s on her feet, and she hurries after him. (She doesn’t know _exactly_ what he means, of course. He might mean it’s time to see her parents, or he might mean it’s time to see the other girls, but honestly, Leah doesn’t care. As long as she gets to see someone other than the nurses or Faber and Young. And as much as she hates to admit it, she really does miss her parents.)

Young leads Leah through halls she hasn’t seen before until they reach a green door. (Leah hasn’t seen any green doors in this place before.) Young punches in a passcode, the lock clicks, and he pushes the door open then steps out of the way. Leah enters the room warily. There’s nothing in it except for a table with eight chairs, four on each side. Only one of the chairs are currently occupied, and Leah stops dead in her tracks a few feet away.

“I’ll give you some time,” Young says. “You’ve probably got five minutes before the next girl gets here.”

The door shuts behind him. Fatin finally lifts her eyes, and she stops tapping her nails against the metal table. She’s in a maroon hoodie. Hair down. (Fatin always kept her hair up on the island. As much as possible. The only time she really ever brought it down was to rinse it out, sometimes in their water supply for the day. Fatin complained about the saltwater, but Dot made sure Fatin’s wasting of their water supply stopped quickly.) Fatin’s face is bare. Completely bare. (Even on the island, her makeup supply lasted the whole time, for the most part. She ran out of a few things, near the end.) Her nails are short, unpainted (obviously). She’s as stripped down as Leah is (but only because Fatin is forced to be).

(Leah tries not to think too far into why she and Fatin might’ve been brought into this room first, alone. It’s most likely because of the letters that Young let Leah and Fatin pass back and forth, all full of total lies. And Nora may not have been able to give Leah a lot of details about what was going on the entire time considering Nora was dying when she admitted that something was up, but Leah knows – feels it in her bones – that they were being watched on the island. Still are being watched, most likely. There are cameras all over this place. Leah knows there were cameras on the island, though she only ever saw the one Nora had talked to.)

“Leah?” Fatin says. She stands abruptly, makes her way around the table. “Oh my God.”

Fatin crosses the room quickly, launches herself into Leah’s arms. Leah keeps them both upright as Fatin crashes into her (with as much, if not more, force as she had when they’d seen that plane fly over). After being trapped for three months on the island with the same seven (six, by the end of the first month) girls, the last few days (maybe it’s even been a full week almost?) away from them have been torture. (The almost nonexistent physical human contact – excluding the nurses that have been poking at Leah since she was “rescued” – has been excruciating. And the only contact Leah’s had with anyone outside of that was with Shelby, for all of twenty seconds.)

“They’re watching us,” Leah whispers against Fatin’s shoulder, trying to block her lips from the view of any cameras in the room. (Leah’s positive there is one. She just hasn’t been able to spot it yet, doesn’t want to seem too obvious by allowing her eyes to search all over the room for any signs of a camera.) “Might be able to hear us.”

Fatin nods, very slightly, as her fingers grasp onto the material of Leah’s sweatshirt, near her lower back. Leah’s dying to ask Fatin what, if anything, she’s found out or overheard, since there was no way they could include that kind of information in their letters. But Leah still can’t risk it. Not when she’s _positive_ that they’re still being constantly monitored. (Or at least constantly recorded.) Fatin pulls back first but doesn’t completely move away from Leah. No, she plants her hands on each side of Leah’s jaw, and Fatin’s expression is deadly serious.

“God, I’ve been _dying_ these last few days,” Fatin says. “I thought going three months without an orgasm was bad. Try being locked in a room for _days_ with no one to see except for those two fucks in the suits or the nurses. And not a single person here is hot. Like, shit.”

As Leah opens her mouth (probably to agree that none of the people here are hot, because if they’re being spied on, she might as well be a dick), Fatin surges forward, fingers curling behind Leah’s ears. Leah’s eyebrows raise in surprise. (The last time they’d kissed – when they were both high – was on day sixteen, over two months ago.) Leah kisses Fatin back, briefly wonders if maybe Fatin’s doing this on purpose, since they’re being spied on. You know, just to fuck with whoever’s watching. It would make sense, given what Leah wrote in the letters. (Nora had said _she_. _She’s_ manipulating this. The only women here that Leah have met have all been nurses, and she doubts any of them are in charge. But Leah would bet her _life_ that whoever the _she_ Nora referred to is aware of what she and Fatin wrote in their letters.)

The pin pad outside the door beeps as Young punches in the code, and Fatin springs away, releasing Leah’s face and taking a whole step back. (She seems sort of reluctant to move completely out of Leah’s space, but no parts of their bodies are touching anymore.) The door unlocks and opens, and Young leads Dot inside. Dot looks a little disoriented, but she snaps right out of it as Fatin crushes her in a hug without any hesitation, before Young has even left. (Leah can’t help but to wonder, feeling bitter even though she wishes she didn’t, if Fatin’s going to kiss Dot, too. The answer ends up being yes and no. Fatin plants one on each of Dot’s cheeks and her forehead before Dot shoves her away, laughing, telling her to keep her lips to herself. “Isolation still didn’t turn me into a lesbian, you know,” Dot teases.) Leah hugs Dot once Young has disappeared again.

“How you holding up?” Dot asks.

“Just great,” Leah answers sarcastically. She whispers the same thing she’d told Fatin to Dot, and Dot nods immediately. (Of course Dot would figure out that they’re being watched.)

“Missed you too, buddy,” Dot says, maybe a little louder than necessary. She pats Leah on the back a few times then pulls away, clears her throat. “Maybe we should sit down? At least until our warden brings in the next person.”

The next person is Rachel. Then Martha. Toni. Shelby’s last, and she hobbles in on crutches, head shaved. (Only Leah knows about that; how Shelby convinced these fuckers to let her see Leah early is beyond Leah’s comprehension.) Toni steps aside, lets the rest of them (carefully) crush Shelby in their arms before Toni gets her moment. The rest of them busy themselves with sitting at the table, chatting, while Toni and Shelby reunite mostly undisturbed by anyone else. (Maybe on the island, someone – probably Rachel – would heckle them. Now, though, no one says a word. And it still nags at Leah that she was put in here first with Fatin, alone, while Toni and Shelby had to wait until the very end, until everyone else was already here and could witness their reunion. Leah got a private moment with Fatin, but Toni and Shelby have to whisper to each other as everyone else does their best not to eavesdrop.)

“I know I said I would deny this,” Fatin says when Toni and Shelby take the last two seats (next to each other, specifically saved for them) at the table. “But I missed the fucking _shit_ out of you guys. And it’s only been, like, a week.”

“Getting soft on us,” Toni teases. “But yeah, being locked in a room all alone? Sucked total ass.”

And from there, the conversation just explodes.

_So what did they say about your hand? Is it okay? Healed fine? You feel okay?_

_The food is_ so _fucking good here. But I mean, they could be serving us food straight out of the dumpster and it’d taste better than everything we ate on the island, so maybe that’s not saying much._

_Do you think they’ll let us keep Marcus? I was serious about passing him around like the Stanley Cup._

_Shelby??? Your hair??? Come over here, I wanna touch it._

_Get your hands off my girlfriend, Fatin._

_Why don’t you make me, Shalifoe?_

_Alright, arm wrestling competition, right here, right now._

And it’s different, how they interact with each other now. There’s something more carefree about it (since they don’t feel like they could die at any given moment, and they aren’t on the brink of starvation anymore, and they aren’t constantly exposed to the elements – Leah could go on). It’s easy. It feels natural. And it’s only now that Leah starts to realize the extent of their bond as a group. They shared this horrific experience together, and these six girls that were strangers on day one are now the people Leah feels closest to. (They’re the only ones that know what it’s like.)

“So how have you been holding up?” Dot asks, reaching across the table to press her palm against Leah’s fist. (She doesn’t realize both her hands are resting on table, curled into fists, until Dot touches her. She relaxes them.) “You know, since you’ve been locked in a room, all alone, with just your thoughts to keep you company.” (Not entirely true, but Dot doesn’t know that, and Leah’s not about to confess. Not here.)

Leah rolls her eyes, lips twisting into a smile as everyone looks at her. “I mean, I’m fine. Faber stopped by a few times.”

Now everyone looks confused. “He did?” Rachel asks. “He never came to see me.”

“Me either,” Toni agrees, and then everyone else follows suit.

“Wait…really?” Leah asks.

“Maybe he just liked you the most,” Fatin says suggestively, and everyone makes some kind of sound of disgust and tells Fatin to knock it off. “Admit it,” Fatin says over all of them. “It’s a possibility. Leah _does_ seem to attract creepy older men.”

(Fatin totally says that because someone is definitely listening in on them. Leah kind of appreciates it, in a strange way. It’s an unspoken yet unsubtle _fuck you_ straight to Faber.)

“Well, that’s not Leah’s fault,” Dot snorts. “Creepy older men should keep it in their pants.”

(Fatin’s hand lands on Leah’s knee beneath the table, causing Leah to startle slightly, but the conversation has already shifted to something else, and no one seems to notice. Fatin doesn’t even look at Leah as she does it, or after. But her hand doesn’t move until they’re told they have to separate for the night.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!


	9. 49

Leah drives Fatin home when school officially ends so neither of their parents will be suspicious. (Not that Fatin’s parents would care that she ditched, but Leah’s would flip.) The picture of her and Fatin is still going around, blowing up everywhere. It’s on Twitter. It’s on Instagram. Leah sees multiple articles about _Leatin_ when she (shamelessly) Googles her own name. (Leatin. Just thinking about that stupid name that social media coined for her and Fatin leaves a bad taste in Leah’s mouth.) Leah knows she’s going to walk into her house and have to immediately face her parents. (The only text she’d gotten from them earlier was _we’ll talk when you get home_.)

Leah steps inside, anticipating that her parents are going to be _right there_ , ready to attack her. The only attacking that happens is the way Buster (totally not named after Buster Keaton because she’d watch his films with her dad when she was little. Not at all) paws at her legs when she doesn’t pet him fast enough. She glances around, searching for her parents, but the house is quiet. At least until Leah walks into the kitchen to find both her parents waiting for her, as expected.

“It’s not true,” Leah blurts. “I _swear_ , and if you need Fatin to corroborate –”

“Leah, we know,” her mom cuts in gently. “People love to spread rumors over the internet. We just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Leah falters. Not the reaction she’d been expecting. (Though now that she really looks at them, they’ve got those looks on their face. The ones from before, when she was going through her initial wave of depression over Jeff.) “I – yeah. I’m fine,” Leah says. “It’s just a stupid rumor. I mean, obviously I can’t deny the – the picture, but we just hugged. Literally, that’s all that happened.”

“People are going to believe what they want to believe,” her dad says. “And if they want to believe that two of the Unsinkable Seven members are dating each other, that’s what they’re going to do. They’ll take any proof they can get.”

“Right,” Leah says slowly. “So I’m not in trouble?”

“Why would you be in trouble?” her mom laughs. “And just so you know, if something actually _was_ happening between you and Fatin – I know it’s not! I’m just saying, if it was, you know we’d be perfectly fine with that, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Leah mumbles as her face heats up. (God, why do parents always have to make everything so fucking awkward?) “I’m not into Fatin,” she adds quickly. “So, like, if you’re ever around her, don’t say anything super weird or embarrassing, okay?”

“We can’t make any promises,” her dad says, and he laughs loudly at the horrified look that crosses Leah’s face. “Hey,” he says, more seriously. “We’re just happy you’ve got six other girls in your corner, okay? And we couldn’t have gotten any luckier since Fatin lives so close by.”

“Okay, great. Just, um, yeah, don’t believe any of the shit that’s all over…everything.”

“Don’t let it get to you,” her dad says. “And if it does, you know you have people to support you –”

“Yes, Dad, I know. Oh my God. I have a lot of homework, so I’m gonna go get started. So if you don’t see me for a few hours, it’s because I’m busy.”

And Leah slips away, mostly unscathed by that conversation. She locks herself in her room, but she sure as hell isn’t about to do homework. (She’d sent all her teachers emails with an excuse about why she ditched, just like Fatin did, and they sent along the work, but she doesn’t want to do it. She’ll just send another excuse later. Her teachers become very understanding when she drops the words _island_ or _therapy_ or _ongoing trauma_.) Leah throws herself down on her bed, shoots off a text.

**3:44 p.m.** _So I’m off the hook_

She knows she should get a quick response, and she does.

**Fatin, 3:46 p.m.** _see??? i told you_

**Fatin, 3:47 p.m.** _and i didn’t even have to convince your parents that we aren’t fucking_

Leah rolls her eyes. (She hates the way reading that text makes her feel, mentally shoves that shit aside.) Her thumbs hover over her phone screen, and she debates asking. (But she knows Fatin is busy dealing with her own shit. Her recent Instagram Lives have been enough proof of that. And her relationship to the cello is complicated, just like her relationship with every person in her household is complicated.)

**3:49 p.m.** _I know this is gonna make me sound obsessive or whatever but_

**3:49 p.m.** _When are you gonna get started?_

**Fatin, 3:50 p.m.** _oh, on the pedo’s book? i already started_

**Fatin, 3:51 p.m.** _why? you want the deets already?_

**3:52 p.m.** _How far are you?_

**Fatin, 3:53 p.m.** _like two chapters in_

**Fatin, 3:53 p.m.** _his writing style is super bleh and he goes way too heavy on the description and metaphors and shit it’s so annoying_

**Fatin, 3:54 p.m.** _don’t worry i’ll keep track of all my thoughts and share them with you_

Leah inhales shakily.

**3:54 p.m.** _Okay_

**3:54 p.m.** _Thanks for doing this for me_

**Fatin, 3:56 p.m.** _yeah of course_

**Fatin, 3:56 p.m.** _have you found a way out of reading this for your english class?_

**3:57 p.m.** _I had my therapist send Wolfe a note so yeah I’m out of it but Wolfe is probably confused as hell_

**Fatin, 3:58 p.m.** _fuck her for even assigning this bullshit_

**Fatin, 3:58 p.m.** _pedo thing aside it’s terribly written_

**3:59 p.m.** _It’s shameless promotion since he’s from here_

**Fatin, 4:00 p.m.** _it’s a crime against humanity is what it is_

Leah snorts and has to stifle the rest of her laughter into her pillow, just in case her parents are close enough to hear. (And she knows that they’d know she’s blowing off homework if she’s laughing.) As Leah’s typing up a response, she’s interrupted by her phone asking her if she’d like to accept a call from none other than Fatin Jadmani. Leah accepts the call, lifting her phone to her ear.

“Hello?” Leah says warily.

“Okay, so I was going to, like, write down all my thoughts and talk about it with you, like, at school tomorrow or whatever, but I don’t think I can wait.”

“Okay,” Leah agrees.

“Unless you don’t want to do this right now,” Fatin says quickly. “Then I’ll just write it down and –”

“No, right now is fine,” Leah interrupts. “It’s kind of driving me nuts, anyway.”

“I figured it was. Okay, so, first chapter. Worst shit I’ve ever read. Spends way too much time exploring the inner life of this Leah Rilke knock-off.”

“Lila Randall.”

“ _Lila Randall_ ,” Fatin mocks, and Leah snickers. “Yeah. Gives like her whole backstory.”

“And?”

“Did you grow up in North Carolina?” Fatin asks.

“No.”

“Did you almost drown in the ocean with the result being a lifelong fear of bodies of water?”

“Um,” Leah says. “I mean – I almost drowned? But he wouldn’t have known about that when he wrote it. And I’m not afraid of the water.”

“Okay, so most of her backstory then is all just made up bullshit,” Fatin continues. “She does have a dog, though.”

“What’s the dog’s name?” Leah asks.

“Some stupid shit,” Fatin scoffs. “Baxter?”

Leah grimaces. “I mean, my dog is Buster. Kind of close?”

“Definitely ripped it off of you, then,” Fatin agrees. “That unimaginative fuck.”

Leah finds herself smiling, feels her heartrate start to slow as Fatin runs through the details of the story and interjects her own commentary into it. She reaches the end of the third chapter right before Leah’s parents call her for dinner. (And by the end of the third chapter, Lila Randall is only just getting to her university, where she’s fated to meet the much older English professor.)

“Yeah, Mom, I’ll be right down!” Leah shouts, away from the phone. “Hey, I gotta –”

“Go,” Fatin finishes for her. “I know. Do you want me to keep reading on my own, or should I wait? We could make this, like, a thing. I read and tell you all my thoughts, and you listen to me talk for hours? That could work for me.”

Leah smiles, slowly, then presses her fingers against her lips. (She hates the feeling settling deep in her stomach. The kind of feeling she’d get every time she saw a text from Jeff’s number, back when they were in the thick of everything.) “I mean, yeah. Sure. Why not?” Leah says, trying to sound as casual as possible. (She fails. She sounds way too giddy.)

“Alright, cool,” Fatin says. Leah hears the book snap shut on Fatin’s end. “You busy tomorrow after school?”

“Fatin. I’m never busy. I kind of have no social life. To be fair, I didn’t really have one before the island, either, so.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” Fatin says. “Before school. Then we can hang out after school and work through more of this garbage.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Now go eat dinner,” Fatin tells her. “And tell your parents that your girlfriend said hi.” Leah chokes on air as Fatin laughs. “I’m just kidding. But it seems that Twitter has reached the conclusion that we’re definitely together.”

“Well, what does Twitter know?”

“Twitter knows we’re hot as fuck,” Fatin replies. “Half the tweets under _#Leatin_ are just people drooling over us. They think your eyes are gorgeous, because obviously they are.”

“God, I didn’t need to know that.”

“Well, if you’re looking for a boyfriend, I doubt you’ll have any trouble finding one now.”

“I’m not looking,” Leah mutters.

“Leah!” her mom calls.

“I’m coming!” Leah yells back. “Sorry.”

“No, go,” Fatin says. “I’ll see you tomorrow. But maybe don’t hug me. We might trend on Twitter for two days in a row then.”

“Noted.”

(Dinner is a quiet affair, but for once, it’s a comfortable kind of quiet. Leah actually finishes her homework after dinner, meaning she’s all caught up for tomorrow. And with Fatin’s recap of chapters one through three, Leah won’t be blindsided by the discussion in English.)

*

The sun rises on day forty nine, and Leah lifts her head off of Shelby’s legs as soon as she wakes up.

“Done using my girlfriend as a pillow?” Toni says, but…it actually sounds like she’s _joking_. There’s nothing harsh or accusatory or mean in Toni’s tone, and it confuses Leah so much that she stares blankly at Toni for a long few moments. So long, Toni raises her eyebrows and snaps her fingers in front of Leah’s face. “You alive in there?”

“Yeah, uh – sorry. Still waking up.”

Toni nods, like that explains it all, then tosses breakfast Leah’s way. (It’s more fucking seaweed, but she eats it anyway. They don’t have much of a choice, and it least it stops her stomach from growling.) Leah sits with Shelby, Toni, and Martha while they eat, scans the surrounding beach for the others. Rachel’s washing up quickly, just at the edge of the ocean. (The whole shark thing has deterred them all from venturing out too far, but Rachel is especially cautious.) Dot and Fatin are gone, off to get water according to Martha.

“I thought – wasn’t it your day to get water with Dot?” Leah asks Shelby.

Shelby shrugs, brushes her hands off on her pants. “Fatin asked to trade, so I’m on food today. It worked out. Now I’m with Toni.”

( _Fatin_ asked to trade. Not Shelby. _Fatin_ asked Shelby to trade so she could be on water with Dot, when it would’ve made much more sense for Shelby to ask Fatin to trade so she could be on food with Toni. Unless Fatin has a reason to want to be completely alone in the woods with Dot for at least an hour.)

“Oh,” Leah says.

“They should be back soon,” Martha assures her. “They went out right at sunrise.”

Leah nods. She finishes the seaweed then heads for the ocean. She’s not sure what kind of mood Rachel’s in today – she’s been kind of unpredictable since Nora died. Some days are okay, and Rachel jokes around with them, and other days she tells them to fuck off and spends the day alone. So Leah picks a spot that’s far enough away from Rachel, in case it’s a bad day, but close enough to carry a conversation if it’s a good day.

“Hey,” Rachel calls, and Leah looks over. “Don’t get naked in front of me, Rilke,” Rachel says. (A smile flickers on Rachel’s face, so Leah rolls her eyes overdramatically.) “I’m not Fatin,” Rachel adds, “so I won’t appreciate the display.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Leah scoffs. Rachel grins, and Leah mentally notes that today should be a good day. (Leah would take the joke a little more personally if she hadn’t heard Rachel say the same thing to Shelby two days ago. Except two days ago, Fatin had been within earshot, and she’d shouted, “If you wanna get naked in front of me, please do. I’ll take whatever I can get,” and it sparked an argument between Fatin and Toni.) “You doing alright?” Leah dares to ask. (That question is always hit or miss, just like Rachel’s mood.)

“Yeah,” Rachel says gruffly. No extra bullshit. And Leah knows Rachel wouldn’t bother to lie. So Leah nods, gets to washing herself down as Rachel finishes up. (Rachel seems to be lingering, though. It’s not like they’re suddenly the best of friends or even anything close, but at least in the last few weeks, Rachel has stopped hating Leah. And Leah doesn’t think she ever truly hated Rachel even though they butted heads constantly for that first month. And then on and off since Nora died. But Rachel doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to rejoin Toni, Shelby, and Martha.) “God, being out here is so fucking gross,” Rachel complains.

“You’re telling me,” Leah replies. She doesn’t completely strip in order to spare Rachel’s eyes, so she wades into the ocean in her underwear and bra. “You’d think we’d get used to having sand all up in us all the time. Nope. Not at all.”

“And my skin is always fucking peeling,” Rachel says, shaking her head. “Fucking nasty.”

“If I could only have one thing on this island, I’d want an unlimited supply of soap,” Leah says. “Or maybe something to help the sunburn. Or maybe just sunscreen.”

“I want some real food,” Rachel says. “No more of this seaweed bullshit. I never even liked sushi to begin with.”

“I’d _kill_ for some real sushi,” Leah groans.

“I’d kill you all for one proper meal,” Rachel jokes, and Leah busts out laughing without even trying.

“Yeah, we know.”

“Don’t go out too far!” Dot shouts as she emerges from the woods with Fatin, water in tow.

“I know!” Leah yells. She dunks her head under the water, rinses the sand from her hair. When she resurfaces, Rachel has drifted slightly closer as she eyes Dot and Fatin.

“Those two acting weird?” Rachel asks, nodding in their direction. “Fatin was super eager to swap with Shelby today.”

Leah swallows hard, glad Rachel’s staring off at Dot and Fatin instead of at her. “Maybe they’re acting weird, but they’ve been weird since, like, day one,” Leah replies. “So who knows? I can’t tell if it’s the same weird or if it’s a new kind of weird.”

Rachel snorts. “Man, Toni and Shelby are bad enough. I can’t handle two couples on this island. I’ll rip my hair out.”

“No, yeah,” Leah agrees faintly. Before she can analyze the emotions rising in her throat, something touches her, and she screams instinctively, spooking the fuck out of Rachel. (But Rachel doesn’t bolt to shore. She splashes over, grabs Leah by the arm, and yanks her back.) It’s just a piece of wood, and Leah and Rachel exchange some nervous but relieved laughter before they both head back to shore together (and stay the fuck away from the water for the rest of the day).

“Leah! Got a minute?”

Leah exhales. No, she doesn’t. She’s still not thrilled that Fatin woke her up to ask her about Jeff, insulted her, then ran off to get water with Dot first thing in the morning (after Dot slept on her all night).

“I, um, I should dry off,” Leah says weakly. (Fatin definitely checks her out as she walks over. Leah watches Fatin’s eyes go up then down, watches her eyebrows quirk upward briefly, watches the corners of her mouth twitch. And maybe that would mean something, if Leah hadn’t caught Fatin do the same thing to Shelby. And Rachel. And actually, she’s done it to literally everyone else, too.) “You’re staring,” Leah says bluntly.

“Sometimes this place has a nice view,” Fatin replies. She winks, and Leah rolls her eyes.

“Stop being a perv, Fatin.”

“I haven’t had an orgasm is literally forever, okay? The least you can do is let me look.”

“Yeah, we all know. You complain about it every day.” Leah accepts the shirt Fatin holds out and starts patting herself dry with it before she attempts to pull her clothes back on. “So what did you want?” Leah asks, perhaps harsher than necessary.

“I’m sorry,” Fatin says. “For last night. I shouldn’t have – I mean, it wasn’t my place.”

Leah sighs heavily, motions for Fatin to follow her up the beach, just to make sure they’re out of earshot of everyone else. “I was a dick,” Leah grudgingly admits. “You were checking in, and I – I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Fatin nods. “I really didn’t mean that you’re the only one who got worse out here. I mean, we all sort of did, but we all sort of got better. In other ways. I could’ve phrased it better. And all things considered, I think you’re doing alright.”

“I haven’t run into the ocean since day twenty two,” Leah says. “So yeah, I think I’m doing alright, too.”

“You just screamed because a piece of wood touched you in the water, so don’t get too cocky,” Fatin teases.

“Okay, I feel like I should get a pass on that because of what happened,” Leah splutters.

“No, yeah, right. Totally. Sharks and whatever. But still, it was funny as fuck.”

They exchange a smile, but Leah’s slides quickly. She inhales sharply, spares a glance over toward everyone else. (Toni and Shelby sit in the sand, legs pressed together, and it looks like they’re mapping out a plan to collect food. Martha helps Dot refill all their water containers and gets them boiling. Rachel’s still drying off, but she seems to be part of Dot and Martha’s conversation.)

“You wanna know what he did to me?” Leah asks. She stares Fatin dead in the eye, daring her to look away. (She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. Fatin’s not one to back down, especially not when Leah’s about to answer the question Fatin had asked last night.) Fatin gives the slightest of nods, just tilts her head upward and waits. “I drove him home,” Leah says, “after he gave that presentation at school?”

“I skipped that,” Fatin dismisses. “Rehearsal. But go on.”

“I told him we could grab food. If he wanted to. And we did, and we talked about his book. And maybe it would’ve been fine if we just ate that one meal, and if I just dropped him off at his hotel and never saw him again.” Leah pauses, takes another deep breath. (And Fatin’s eyes stay on her face the whole time. Fatin’s jaw clenches, unclenches, but her expression is carefully controlled.) “Except he said it was fun,” Leah says, and _goddamn_ it, her voice breaks. “And that we should do it again. And it didn’t come across as creepy, you know? I mean, obviously he was older, but he seemed fine. So I put my number in his phone. And he used it. So, um, I guess what he _did_ , besides letting me fall in love with him – besides encouraging it, besides maybe falling in love with me as wrong as that is or maybe just using me for sex, I don’t know – well. I guess that’s what he did, right? All of that. And then he pretended he didn’t know he’d met me at our school, pretended like he didn’t know I might not be eighteen. He let me fall in love with him, and he ran the second he got worried about his own ass. _That_ is what he did to me.”

(Fatin’s necklace may say _zero fucks_ , but she sure as hell doesn’t look like she gives zero fucks right now.) Leah flinches as Fatin raises her hand, and Fatin pauses, eyes searching Leah’s for permission before she wipes away the tears from Leah’s face. (Leah doesn’t know when she started crying, doesn’t know what exactly sent her over the edge.)

“Leah, I’m so –”

“Please don’t,” Leah whispers. “I don’t want – just don’t.”

Fatin nods, hesitates for a moment. Leah looks over Fatin’s shoulder at the others again, but none of them seem to be overly interested in their conversation. Good. Leah doesn’t need to be interrogated about why she’s cracking on day forty nine when she’s mostly held her shit together since, like, day thirty. (Getting confirmation that she’s _right_ from Nora might’ve finally allowed her mind to accept the utter hopelessness of their situation, to fully accept that there’s nothing Leah can do except try to stay alive, try to keep them all alive.)

Fatin holds her arms out, starts to ask, “Can I –?” but Leah’s already falling into her. Leah clutches onto her, squeezes her eyes shut, as her entire body shakes. (And Fatin holds on just as tightly, like maybe it’s just the two of them out here, even though Leah can hear Rachel cursing when she knocks over one of the bottles of freshly boiled water, even though they obviously aren’t alone.)

“I’m so sorry,” Fatin breathes, and Leah doesn’t even tell her to shut up. “I’m so sorry.”

(They don’t break apart until Leah pulls it together, until she swipes away the last tears that fall – and she realizes that these aren’t tears that she shed over Jeff fucking Galanis. No. These tears are shed over what he put her through instead.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!


	10. 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a midterm tomorrow and I don't want to think about posting the chapter, so I decided to drop tomorrow's chapter tonight instead. You're welcome lol.

If Leah thought the staring was bad in the little time she spent at school yesterday, today it’s about a hundred times worse. It starts the second Leah steps out of Fatin’s (yellow, fucking expensive as hell) Audi. No one bothers to pretend like they aren’t unabashedly gawking at her as she walks through the halls, from class to class, to lunch. She sits with Ian on the lawn, like always, but it seems like there’s a lot more people outside than usual.

“Are there –?”

“Like a ton of people out here staring at us?” Ian finishes for her. He takes a bite of his sandwich and nods. “Mm-hmm. Definitely.”

“God,” Leah groans.

“Let’s just hope they don’t snap a picture of us and spread it on Twitter saying, like, you’re already cheating on Fatin,” Ian jokes.

Leah’s eyes widen. “That’s not even funny!”

“Relax,” Ian snorts. “We both know Fatin will get caught with someone before you do.”

“Are you saying –?”

“I’m just saying,” Ian interjects, and Leah lets him, “we both know how Fatin is. She’ll find herself someone, someone else will spot it and report it to all the social media sites, and if you’re asked about it, you just say you were never together in the first place, right? So hopefully she’ll come through and fuck someone soon, right?”

Leah swallows hard, nods. (And she remembers Fatin had said she fucked a guy last week, and probably every week – multiple times a week, even – before that, starting when they got back to California. It’s none of Leah’s business anyway.) “Right. Yeah. That’s – that’s smart.”

“It’ll blow over,” Ian assures her. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“Don’t let _what_ get to me?” Leah questions. “The obnoxious staring or the fact that there’s a Leatin hashtag on Twitter that has thousands of tweets under it?”

“Tens of thousands, actually,” Ian corrects. “Something like seventy thousand so far? People seem really invested in this nonexistent relationship of yours.”

“Not helpful.”

“Both,” Ian finally answers. “Don’t let either of those things get to you. The internet obviously doesn’t know jack shit, and our classmates’ lives are so meaningless that they’re wasting their time watching your every move.”

“I saw her in the hall,” Leah says. “Fatin. I saw her, and I was afraid to even look at her in case someone saw us and put it on Twitter and went all _#Leatin_. And she drove me to school today, so I have to leave with her, and you _know_ someone will take a picture of that.”

“You went from being the most boring to the most interesting person here,” Ian says. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“Oh, shut up,” Leah grumbles, but she smiles at him.

“There’s already a video of you getting out of the car floating around,” Ian informs. “Hang on.” He pulls out his phone, opens Twitter, and quickly finds it (probably under the fucking Leatin hashtag). He hands his phone over, and Leah glares at the screen, at the poorly shot video of herself, wearing the clothes she’s in right now, stepping out of the (flashy, unmistakable) Audi at the same time that Fatin gets out. (And it’s obvious, even with the awful quality of the video, that Fatin looks fucking gorgeous. Because she does.)

“All we did was get out of the same car,” Leah says angrily. Ian hurries to take his phone back before Leah can decide to throw it.

“Yeah, well, the video was captioned _#Leatin arrives at school together_ ,” Ian says. “You’re just adding fuel to the fire now.”

“I’m not trying to! But we’re friends, and –”

“Leah, I know,” Ian says gently. “But you two – and five other girls – were trapped on an island for almost ninety days. And none of you have been overly open about what happened.”

“We have to be careful about what we say,” Leah grumbles. “The trial’s coming up. And I don’t want to be a fucking celebrity. I just want to live my damn life.”

“I know, but people love to gossip and speculate about what might’ve went down, and clearly they think Fatin would’ve definitely jumped someone, and you just happen to live the closest to her. Honestly, I think it could’ve happened to any of you. But it probably would’ve always happened to Fatin no matter what. You’re just the unlucky one.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Leah mutters. “I thought Fatin was going to go back to normal, pretend like I didn’t exist.”

“Why would she do that?”

Leah shrugs. “We were never supposed to be friends.”

“You were never supposed to crash on an island as part of an elaborate, fucked up experiment, either. Shit happens.”

The door to the school slams against the wall so hard, it draws the attention of half of the people on the front lawn (including Leah’s). Fatin storms out, and it takes Leah way too long to realize Fatin’s heading straight her and Ian.

“Uh oh,” Ian says, gathering his belongings. “She looks mad, so. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait, Ian! Don’t –” But Ian scampers off moments before Fatin reaches their spot. Leah’s hands tighten in the grass as she peers up at Fatin, towering over her. “Hi?” Leah says. “Is something –?”

“We need to talk. Right now,” Fatin says. She holds her hands out, and Leah stares at them for a long time. Like, a real long time. “Let’s go,” Fatin insists.

“We’re being watched,” Leah reminds her.

“We were watched for three fucking months straight,” Fatin snorts. “Who gives a fuck about these lowlifes?”

“You know someone’s waiting to take a picture of us. Or they already are taking pictures or videos, and they’re going to –”

“Leah. Forget that. Let’s go.”

Leah takes Fatin’s hands, lets Fatin yank her to her feet. Fatin plants her hand against the back of Leah’s neck, fingers curling against Leah’s shoulder, and she leads them to the Audi.

“They’re gonna think we’re fucking in your car,” Leah moans. “That’s what I’m going to fucking see when I check Twitter tonight. _#Leatin fucked in a car in the school parking lot_. Jesus.”

“Funny, how that’s, like, right on topic,” Fatin says. They pull the car doors shut, and Leah has never been so grateful for tinted windows. Fatin smacks her hand into Leah’s shoulder, and as Leah protests, Fatin says, “You know, you’re a real cockblock, Leah.”

“What? What did I even do?”

Fatin sighs, presses her fingertips against her temples. “Okay, sorry, that was unfair of me. But I just had this, like, really hot guy from Berkeley blow me off because _I thought you were doing that Leah chick from the island_?” Fatin says, dropping her voice lower to mimic the guy (and it would be incredibly funny under different circumstances). “So now I can’t fucking get laid because everyone here thinks we’re an item.”

“I told you,” Leah says smugly. “It’s a pain in the fucking ass, isn’t it?”

“I went three months without an orgasm, Leah!” Fatin exclaims. “I can’t go back to never having an orgasm because everyone thinks I’m locked down!”

“Then let’s break up,” Leah suggests. “We can go stand on the lawn and scream at each other, let someone film it, and then we’ll be off the hook.”

“Until they catch us acting like friends,” Fatin points out. “Believe me, I already thought about that.”

“Well, try harder to fuck someone!” Leah says. When their eyes lock, they both snicker, and Fatin rolls her eyes.

“What do you _think_ I’ve been doing, Leah? I’ve gotten rejected more these last two days than the entire summer.”

Leah snorts. “Dot rejected you, like, eight times a day on the island, so I highly doubt that’s true.”

Fatin hums. “I’ll wear her down eventually,” she says (and Leah doesn’t know if it’s a joke or not). “You know something super obvious that we haven’t tried yet?”

“What?”

“Just tweeting that we’re just friends,” Fatin says. Her phone’s already in her hand, and she types up a quick tweet and hands her phone to Leah. “Sound okay?”

“They’ll just call us liars,” Leah replies. “But yeah. Whatever. Worth a shot.”

So Fatin tweets out to her thousands of followers: _hey all, while leah and i love how much fun you’re having with the whole #leatin thing, we’re actually just really good friends so you know chill out a little please we still have lives to lead_

Leah scrolls through the thread beneath Fatin’s tweet during her last class. Most of the tweets are exactly what Leah expected, boiling down to _yeah right, nice try_. Or _you’re both so hot omg I can’t believe that you’re not together_. There are a few offers from guys for a threesome, and as they’re leaving for the day, Leah makes sure Fatin knows that she will not be participating in any kind of sex acts with Fatin or with anyone, and Fatin laughs so hard, tears stream down her face and ruin her makeup.

“Please,” Fatin says. “Everyone wants some of this.”

Then it’s Leah’s turn to laugh so hard, she can’t breathe, and as they walk across the lawn toward Fatin’s car, Leah falls into Fatin, unable to keep herself upright as she laughs hysterically. Fatin’s offended expression is obviously exaggerated, and Leah finds that even funnier, so they have to stop walking so Leah can catch her breath while clinging to Fatin’s arm. (And that’s a mistake. That picture, with Leah gripping onto Fatin’s arm, her forehead braced against Fatin’s shoulder as her body quakes with uncontrollable laughter, goes around Twitter with the caption _#Leatin getting close and making each other laugh!!!_ And if Leah ever finds out who’s taking pictures and videos of them, she’s going to straight up murder a bitch.)

Fatin really holds their departure from school up because she has to fix her makeup in her car before they leave, even though they’re going straight to her place where she could easily deal with it.

“This car’s, like, fucking insane,” Leah says when the silence starts to stretch on too long.

“My dad felt guilty,” Fatin replies. “He told me to ask for anything, so I did.” Fatin pauses then holds out her left arm and pulls up the sleeve of her jacket. Strapped to her wrist is a gold watch with an intricate but large face. (It’s the same watch from the island. Leah would recognize it anywhere.) “I told him I was keeping it, even though I stole it from his ass,” Fatin says, smirking slightly. “What can I say? It kind of grew on me out there.”

Leah hesitates, eyes locked on the watch until Fatin pulls her arm away and returns her attention to her makeup. “So, um, how is your…family?”

“Well, they didn’t mean to send me to a fucking island to almost die, so they feel pretty bad,” Fatin answers. She effortlessly swipes lipstick across her lower lip, and Leah pretends like she isn’t watching her. “And they’re pretty pissed that it was an experiment on top of everything else, so. But my dad’s still a fucking cheater, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And your mom?”

Fatin shrugs. “I’m just over it, Leah. She’s not going to leave him. She said something about giving my brothers a stable home, as if keeping them around my father is – it doesn’t really matter. No one will bother us today, if that’s what you’re really trying to ask me.”

*

“Dare,” Fatin says. “Come on. Someone has to choose it. You’re all being fucking pussies.”

“Fine,” Toni says. “I dare you to streak across the beach.”

“Oh, shit,” Rachel laughs. She shoves at Nora’s leg, and Nora smiles, averting her eyes to the fire.

“You wanted to see this?” Fatin replies, raising an eyebrow. (There’s a smirk on her face, and she’s already pulling her shirt over her head.) “All you had to do was ask, baby.”

As Toni rolls her eyes, Dot says, “Fatin, you aren’t really going to –”

Yes, she is. She’s on her feet, kicking her jeans off. “A dare’s a dare,” Fatin replies. She winks at Dot before her eyes survey the rest of the girls. (It’s their eleventh day on the island, according to Nora’s journal. The sun went down an hour ago, and as exhausted as they all are, no one could resist when Shelby pitched the idea of truth or dare. Leah has the feeling that this isn’t what Shelby had in mind, considering the way she’s staring very intently at the fire instead of to her right, where Fatin’s quickly shedding clothing.) Fatin pauses to remove her hoops, standing in her (matching) bra and panties. “No one else wants to come with?” Fatin invites. “Leah?”

Leah balks, clears her throat (tries desperately to not look straight at Fatin as her bra hits the sand). “Yeah, no, I’m good. Have fun.”

“Hmm? Shelby?” Fatin taunts. She nudges Shelby’s leg with her foot, and Shelby jumps half a mile. (She makes the mistake of looking to her right, right up at Fatin, and poor Shelby gets way more than an eyeful. Even by firelight, Leah can tell that Shelby’s entire face burns a deep shade of red.) “Come _on_. Let loose!” Fatin exclaims. She dangles her panties off the edge of her finger before she flings them straight into Leah’s chest. “Thought you’d like a souvenir,” Fatin laughs, and then she takes off running while the rest of the girls sit in stunned silence.

Dot lets out a low whistle before she looks at Toni. “This is all your fault,” Dot says. Toni, though, is laughing so hard she can’t breathe. (Toni’s got her forehead pressed to Martha’s shoulder, and she’s slapping her hand against Martha’s knee as she tries to regain her composure and fails, over and over, as Fatin jogs by, cheering or calling for someone to join her.)

“You guys all need to stop enabling her,” Rachel says. She points a finger at Toni. “Especially you. And _stop_ –” Rachel reaches over and snatches Fatin’s panties from Leah’s thigh, where they’d landed after they bounced off her chest, “holding her fucking underwear.”

“I wasn’t holding it,” Leah retorts. “I’m just –”

“Very surprised,” Dot finishes for her. She takes Fatin’s underwear from Rachel and tosses them with the rest of Fatin’s clothes. “I think we all are.”

“You know, it does seem like it’d be very freeing,” Nora says.

“No!” Leah, Rachel, and Shelby all shout.

Nora’s smile is soft, and she shrugs. “Fatin sounds like she’s having fun.”

“Yeah, and then she’s gonna come back and refuse to put her clothes back on,” Dot grumbles. “And she’s gonna shove her tits in all our faces, and –”

“I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Toni teases.

“Oh, fuck you,” Dot laughs, and then they’re throwing sand at each other, and Leah finds herself scooting closer to Rachel and Nora to get out of the line of fire (as Martha shifts closer to Shelby).

A pair of hands land on Leah’s shoulders, and Leah shrieks, clamping her hand over her mouth as all the eyes turn toward her and widen. “Come on, Leah,” Fatin says right next to Leah’s ear. (And Leah doesn’t want to think about how Fatin is _right behind_ her, wearing literally nothing, not even her fucking hoop earrings.) “You’re the one who likes to strip down in the middle of the beach and walk into the ocean, aren’t you?”

“I – this is totally different.”

Fatin’s hands squeeze her shoulders. “You’re all just no fun,” Fatin declares. She steps between Leah and Rachel, ignores Rachel’s complaints, and starts grabbing her clothes from the pile waiting for her between Martha and Shelby. (This time, Shelby’s eyes stay locked on the fire and do not leave.) Fatin takes her time putting everything back on, seems to take pleasure in the fact that Toni shamelessly stares. “There,” Fatin announces once her hoops are back in. “Dare complete. So I guess that means it’s my turn?”

Now no one makes eye contact with Fatin. Not even Toni. Fatin grins evilly, eyes shifting from person to person around the circle. (Leah knows Fatin’s going to choose her. She can feel it, even if Fatin’s eyes linger on Toni.) But then Fatin turns her head to the side, staring directly at the side of Shelby’s face as she says, “Shelby, truth or dare?”

“Actually, I think I’ve had enough of the games for today,” Shelby says weakly.

“Oh, come on!” Fatin shoves at Shelby’s shoulder, doesn’t seem to notice the way it makes Shelby flinch. “All it took was a little nudity to knock you out of the fun? You guys all suck.”

“I think Shelby’s right,” Dot pipes up. “There’s really no better way to end a game of truth or dare, you know? Right after someone strips and runs up and down the beach. There’s really no way to top that.”

Fatin grins, shrugs. “What can I say?” she says. “I just hope you all enjoyed the view.”

“Well, I can’t speak for anyone else,” Toni says, but the rest of her sentence is drowned out by the group jeering while Martha tells Toni to keep it in her pants.

“Yeah, both of you keep it in your pants,” Dot warns. “We don’t need any banging going on while the rest of us are trying to sleep.”

“Aw, don’t be jealous, Dorothy,” Fatin replies. “You know you’ll always be my number one. And anytime you want some of this,” Fatin motions toward herself, “all you have to do is ask.”

Dot sneers, motions for Fatin to come over before she says, “Bring it, baby.”

“Oh, you know I’d _totally_ let you top me.”

“Okay, that’s more than enough for me,” Rachel says. She gets to her feet (and Nora scrambles to follow after her) as Dot starts with one obscene gesture, and Fatin goes for another from across the fire. (And Leah really shouldn’t feel anything just by watching Fatin lick the space between her own fingers, but, uh – here she is, pulling her knees to her chest and trying _very_ hard to focus on literally anything else.)

“Get a fucking room!” Toni heckles.

“You’re just jealous of what Dorothy and I have,” Fatin retorts. “And just so we’re all clear, I don’t let just _anyone_ top me, okay? It’s gotta be someone special.”

“Jesus, Fatin!” Rachel snaps. “Give it a rest.”

Fatin winks at Dot, and Dot’s eyes roll as Fatin looks briefly at Leah. Fatin’s smile widens, her eyebrows lift, then she says something about going to bed as Leah’s heart hammers in her throat.

(“God, what a night,” Toni sighs.

“Toni! I’m trying to sleep,” Martha yawns.

“I’m just saying, Fatin’s smokin’ –”

“We know,” Rachel snaps. “We all saw. Now go to bed before I come over there and make you.”

“Leah’s with me,” Toni argues. “Did you see her face when Fatin –”

“Yeah, I’m trying to sleep too, so leave me out of this,” Leah says. “Or I’ll help hold you down so Rachel can kick your ass.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so amazing. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Leave me your thoughts, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!


	11. 49

They head straight for Fatin’s room, and as promised, no one bothers them. (In fact, no one’s around. Fatin’s brothers are still at school for another hour, and both her parents’ cars are missing. Her mom’s at work, and her dad, “is probably out fucking some skank, who even knows?”)

“You hungry?” Fatin asks. She drops her keys on the counter as Leah marvels over the interior of her house (again – Fatin’s house is truly breathtaking, even if Leah has seen it before). “We can order something or whatever. Or if you wanna cook, go ahead, but I’m not cooking for you.”

“No, I’m fine,” Leah says, tearing her eyes away from the piece of art on the wall.

“I’m sure once my brothers get home, we’ll be ordering pizza or something,” Fatin replies. “So you got about an hour before you’re gonna eat.”

(They all lost a horrific amount of weight on the island. Most of them are back up to a healthy or almost healthy weight. Toni and Fatin slimmed down the most, already not having much to lose, but considering the way they both eat when presented with food, Leah doesn’t think there’s anything to be concerned about.)

“Fine,” Leah agrees.

“Okay, come on,” Fatin says, taking Leah’s wrist. She pulls Leah with her to her room, as though Leah doesn’t know where it is, then nudges Leah toward the bed once the door’s shut. “You can do homework if you want,” Fatin says. “Or I guess you can stare at me while I read this piece of shit.” She pulls the book ( _Jeff’s_ book) out of her bag, making a face at it. “It’s going to be really difficult for me, just so you know.”

Leah exhales, kicks her shoes off before throwing herself down on Fatin’s bed (on the side she’d spent the night on, because she knows Fatin will make her move if she does anything else). “Yeah, okay. Just tell me if anything, like, insane comes up.”

Fatin smirks as she sits on the other side of the bed then winks. “You got it, baby.” She leans back against the headboard and flips the book open. Leah pulls out her phone, tries to be interested in Instagram or Twitter, but all the Leatin shit is getting _so_ annoying. No matter where Leah looks, it keeps popping up. She peruses social media as long as she can handle the silence, the feeling of not knowing the words that Fatin is currently cruising through. Maybe twenty minutes goes by before Leah sets her phone down on her chest and turns her head to stare up at Fatin.

“Staring at me isn’t going to make me read faster,” Fatin says. (Her eyes don’t leave the page.)

“Anything good?”

“Fuck, no,” Fatin scoffs. “This is, like, worse than torture. She met the hot English professor, but he doesn’t even sound that hot. He sounds like a basic-ass white guy with a beard. But he wears glasses, so I guess that makes him more attractive?”

Leah hums. “Okay, keep going.”

“Don’t rush me,” Fatin teases. “I’m not a fast reader, okay?”

Leah snorts, which draws a wide smile out of Fatin as she shakes her head. (But her eyes return to the page.) Leah’s eyes drift from Fatin’s face (from the way Fatin’s eyebrows scrunch together, just a little, while she concentrates) and move around the room. Leah doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it before now. The cello case, tucked in the corner of the room.

“Do you think you’ll ever play again?” Leah asks.

“Not for anyone other than myself,” Fatin answers, quickly and easily. She flips a page, keeps reading, doesn’t offer more of an explanation than that. Leah’s eyebrows pull together, and she looks back up at Fatin, but Fatin’s focused on the book. Fatin’s expression slightly sours, and Leah watches her flip backward, then forward, backward again.

“What?” Leah prompts.

“This fucker wrote a two page description of Lila’s fucking eyes,” Fatin says. She laughs in disbelief then reaches over and lays her hand against Leah’s hip. “This is completely ridiculous.” (Leah’s eyes drop to where Fatin’s hand’s resting on her hip, Fatin’s fingers splaying out on Leah’s lower abdomen. Fatin’s nails are still painted a light yellow. Leah can’t stop her eyes from landing on the gold watch, sunlight glinting off its face. That watch is the only reason they ever knew the time on the island, and Fatin’s still wearing it even though it’s a very strong reminder of everything they went through.)

Leah shifts her hand closer to Fatin’s (she still hasn’t pulled it away) and Leah tentatively touches her fingertips against the metal band. “Two whole pages?” Leah murmurs. She feels Fatin’s eyes on her, studying her, but Leah’s eyes stay on the watch. (Why would she keep wearing it? Fatin said it grew on her, but she could swap _that_ watch for any men’s watch, probably an even nicer one, since her parents feel so guilty.)

“Yeah, he comes up with so many ways to describe _green_. It’s making me sick,” Fatin says. She watches Leah trace her fingertips along the watch, gently, as if just grazing the metal might be enough to break it. “I swear, he’s going on and on and _on_ about her fucking green eyes. Like, they’re green, okay, I get it.”

“Hmm.”

“Obviously he had to make them a color other than blue, though,” Fatin says. “I’m not sure any writer – even a good one – could properly capture just how fucking gorgeous your eyes are. I think that’s just something you have to experience for yourself, you know? Reading about it would never be good enough.”

Leah rips her eyes away from the watch, looks up at Fatin with her eyebrows furrowed. Leah sighs in irritation as Fatin’s lips curl into a teasing smirk. “You’re not funny,” Leah says.

“I mean, why wouldn’t he just give her blue eyes, then? I bet you he didn’t think he’d be able to do it justice.”

Leah’s eyes roll. “Don’t flatter me.” Her eyes return to Fatin’s wrist, to the fucking watch from the island. It’s nagging at her. She doesn’t know why, but seeing it here, in a normal setting, it’s driving her fucking –

Fatin sets the book on her chest and pulls her hand away, swiftly unlatches the watch and slips it off her wrist. She leans over to set it on the nightstand then picks the book back up without a word. Leah lifts her eyes back to Fatin’s face, but Fatin gives nothing away. After a few moments, though, she presses her palm against the side of Leah’s face and pushes her head to the side.

“Stop staring at me,” Fatin chuckles. “I have a hard enough time concentrating without you, like, distracting me with your gorgeous eyes. This shit is so boring, and I would _so_ rather just stare into your eyes for hours, Leah Rilke.”

Leah laughs, hard, and Fatin grins then goes back to the book. And Leah doesn’t know what exactly happens after that. Somehow, she falls asleep, wakes up with her forehead resting against the side of Fatin’s thigh. Leah grunts and shifts back, and as she looks up at Fatin, she catches Fatin staring at her instead of at the open book in her hand.

“How long was I out?” Leah groans.

“An hour, at least.”

“What?”

“Relax,” Fatin dismisses. “You haven’t missed anything. I mean, my brothers are home and there’s pizza downstairs if you want some, but it’s probably cold by now. And as far as the book goes, I’m at chapter six. Lila is carrying on a secret affair with her _married_ professor, but there hasn’t been anything too juicy yet.”

Leah’s lips part as she stares up at Fatin. (It’s still a little weird, seeing Fatin with her hair down so often.) “Thank you,” Leah says quietly. “For doing this. You really didn’t have to.”

“It’s better than having to watch you go dark again,” Fatin says softly. Leah nods slightly then rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “You can keep sleeping, if you want,” Fatin says. “There’s, like, another twelve chapters in this book, so I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”

“You don’t have to keep going,” Leah says. “Right now, at least. We can do something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Leah admits.

Fatin inhales sharply. “Do you sleep, Leah?”

“What? Yeah. Of course I do. Why?”

Fatin shrugs. “You knocked out fast and without warning, and you kinda always look tired. I mean, no one could blame you for having issues sleeping. Lord knows I can’t get to sleep without doing at least one shot before bed.”

“That’s not – you shouldn’t do that.”

“I think it’s better than lying awake all night.”

“It’s hard,” Leah says. “Sleeping in a bed alone. It’s getting easier, I guess, but still, right when we got back…I didn’t know how to sleep alone.”

(They spent three months always sleeping within a few feet of another person in a place that never felt safe. How was Leah supposed to readjust to sleeping in a bed, in a room where she knew she was completely safe? It’s unsettling.)

Fatin snaps the book shut, sets it on the nightstand with her watch. She slides down on the bed, turns so she’s lying facing Leah. “After Dot went back to Texas, I couldn’t sleep,” Fatin admits. “I had to call her and could only fall asleep when I knew she was on the other end of the line, even if we were silent. And that’s, like, super embarrassing or whatever, but it is what it is.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” Leah says. “It’s really smart, actually. I just got a prescription for sleeping pills.”

Fatin cracks a smile. “Still using those?”

“No. I fucking ran out and they wouldn’t give me more.”

“Can I tell you something, like, totally gross?” Fatin asks.

“Sure. Why not? We’ve seen each other hit rock bottom.”

“I slept with a guy I barely knew last week,” Fatin says.

“Okay, that’s nothing new –”

“No,” Fatin interrupts. “I _slept_ with him. Like, in his bed. All night. Obviously after we fucked, but like…I couldn’t make myself leave. I couldn’t bear the thought of going home to an empty bed.”

Leah swallows hard. (It makes sense, why Fatin wanted her to stay the other night. It’s not just because she was drunk. It’s because sleeping next to someone is better than sleeping next to no one after spending three months in hell where there was no such thing as privacy or personal space.) “That’s pretty gross, Fatin,” Leah says quietly.

Fatin smiles, rolls her eyes (and Leah has to consciously tell herself not to stare at Fatin’s lips, to keep looking Fatin in the eye). “I know,” Fatin says. “I’d say I’ll never do it again, but…I don’t know. If I get desperate…”

“Desperate isn’t a good look on you,” Leah jokes. “Don’t sleep at your man of the week’s place. That’s gross and desperate. You can sleep with me.”

Fatin’s eyebrows raise. “Oh, I can now, huh?” she says. “Alright, let’s start now. Take it off.”

Fatin grasps a handful of Leah’s shirt, and Leah laughs, swatting Fatin’s hands away and pushing at her stomach. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

“I know,” Fatin says. (She releases Leah’s shirt.) “Got you to laugh, though.”

“I mean it, though,” Leah says. “If you really can’t be alone, you can crash at my place. My parents won’t care, and I – I mean, I don’t exactly love spending the night completely alone, either.”

Fatin hums, reaches over to swipe a lock of Leah’s hair out of her eyes, hooks it behind her ear. “You’re going to regret that offer, because I’m totally going to take you up on it,” Fatin says. “I’m just gonna be randomly showing up at your house. Your parents will start to think we lied to them about not being together.”

Leah laughs as Fatin grabs her phone, sets an alarm. “What’re you doing?” Leah asks.

“We’re gonna take a nap,” Fatin informs. “You still look tired as shit, and I feel tired as shit after reading three chapters of that trash. We can sleep for an hour, and then I’ll drive you home.”

“Okay.”

“But, um, don’t go anywhere,” Fatin says. “Like don’t get up. I’ll know if you’re gone.”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together slightly, but she nods. “Okay. So I should go pee now then?”

“Yes. Go now.”

As much as Leah thinks she won’t be able to fall asleep again with Fatin right next to her, totally sober, she proves herself wrong. She lays back down, finds herself falling asleep almost immediately. The alarm wakes them up an hour later, and Leah already misses the peaceful, dreamless sleep that this nap allowed her. (She also misses the way Fatin’s arm had rested across her waist, the way Fatin’s forehead leaned into her arm, but she would never admit that.)

*

“Don’t you know what time it is, young lady? It’s way past your curfew.”

It’s a weak attempt at a joke. (It’s been a little while since Leah truly had a bad day. Like, a day that’s almost entirely bad. But now the sun has just set on day forty nine, and Leah dredged all her Jeff shit back up to tell Fatin what happened, and she screamed over being touched by a piece of wood, so it’s not like the rest of the day was destined to go well.)

“I actually don’t know what time it is,” Leah says gruffly. “You’re the one with the watch.”

Fatin chuckles (out of pity, for sure). Leah expects Fatin to sit next to her, the same way Fatin had way back on day twenty two before Leah ran into the ocean. Instead, when Fatin lowers herself to the ground, she lies down in the sand, positioning her head right next to Leah’s so their bodies sprawl out in opposing directions. (Meaning Leah can’t turn her head to look at Fatin without bumping into her. Leah knows Fatin has done this before with Martha, when they spend hours discussing all the boys they’re going to get when they get home – except more recently, it’s becoming _if_ they get home.) Their cheeks are almost pressed together, so Leah’s stuck staring up at the stars packing the sky. (It’s a full moon, too. Plenty to look at.)

“Why are you up?” Fatin asks.

“Rough day,” Leah mutters. “Why are _you_ up? Didn’t Dot go to bed, like, two hours ago?”

“Three, almost,” Fatin corrects.

“Why aren’t you with her?”

“Why are you laying in the sand, like, thirty feet away from camp even though everyone else went to bed?” Fatin counters.

“Not everyone,” Leah murmurs. She heaves a sigh, rubs at her eyes. “I’m surprised they could all fall asleep. You know, when the sun rises, it’ll officially be fifty days on this island.”

“That’s not what’s keeping you up,” Fatin says softly. (Leah will never know how she just seems to _know_ shit about her. How Fatin seems to know when to keep a closer eye on her. How she seems to know when it’s time to keep her company, or when it’s time to leave her alone.) “I’m sorry for making you feel like you owed me an explanation about that asshole,” Fatin says.

“I didn’t feel like I owed you an explanation,” Leah replies. “We’re friends. I wanted you to know.”

(She can only see Fatin in her peripheral vision, can just make out the small smile that flickers on Fatin’s face when Leah says _we’re friends_.)

“Do you remember how we talked on the first day?” Fatin asks. “Right after the game of Never Have I Ever that Miss Texas made us play?”

“Yeah.” (It was the first time Leah told Fatin she’d slept with Jeff, but she kinda let Fatin believe they were just fucking.) “What about it?”

“I told you the first guy I slept with was a grocery bagger,” Fatin says.

“From Smart & Final,” Leah recalls. “You said you loved him.”

“Yeah,” Fatin laughs. “You know what happened to him?”

“No?”

“I had to break up with him,” Fatin says. “Because he started to get in the way, and my parents didn’t really give me a choice. The fucking cello came first, and it didn’t matter that I loved him. So after him, I decided it’d be easier to sleep with different guys, because at least there’d be a much smaller chance that I’d actually like any of them, right? Especially if they were a few years older.”

“Well, when we get back – if we get back, I guess – you could always see what he’s up to now,” Leah says slowly.

Fatin scoffs. “No. That’s done and over with. Ancient history. Might as well keep moving forward.”

“So…why are you telling me this?”

(Leah wishes she could really see the way Fatin fully smiles this time.)

“We’re friends, Leah,” Fatin says. “I wanted you to know.”

“Is this what we’re going to do now? Share depressing tidbits of our lives with each other?”

“God, no,” Fatin says. “But…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want you to think that I’m totally heartless. I know what people say about me. I know the rumors floating around our school. You can’t honestly tell me that you had a positive opinion of me before we got stranded here together.”

Leah winces. “You’re right. I can’t.”

Fatin inhales deeply. “I put up with being the school’s number one slut because it was easier than putting effort into another relationship I knew I’d have to ditch as soon as it started to interfere with music.”

“That’s pretty smart, actually.”

“It’s depressing.”

“Yeah,” Leah agrees quietly. “But so is letting one guy ruin your entire life, so.”

“The grocery bagger was my age,” Fatin points out. “Jeffrey’s twenty years older than you. It’s a little different.”

Leah manages a nod. “You don’t have to stay here with me,” she says. “You can go back.”

“You aren’t staying this far out by yourself.”

“It’s not that far –”

“So either come back with me, or we’re sleeping here for the night,” Fatin says. “But not like this. I don’t want you to accidentally head-butt me.” Fatin sits up, starts brushing sand off herself even though it’s a futile effort. “So? What’s it gonna be?”

“I’m not moving,” Leah says (maybe just to be stubborn, maybe just to see how Fatin reacts to that).

“Fine,” Fatin agrees. She twists around, lays next to Leah so their shoulders and arms press together. “I guess we’re sleeping out here then. Better hope the tide doesn’t sweep in too far again, or we’re dead.”

Leah can’t stifle a snicker in time. “Go back if you’re so worried,” Leah says. “Besides, I’m sure Dot’s waiting for the pleasure of your company.” (Leah hadn’t meant to sound so bitter about it, so damn, she needs to work on her delivery of statements that aren’t jokes but should really be said like it’s a joke.)

Fatin snorts. “I’m sure Dorothy can survive one night without me.”

“Even though once it hits midnight, it’ll be day fifty?” Leah questions. “That’s a huge milestone, you know.” (A massively painful one at that.) “You don’t want to wake up together?”

“Now you sound jealous,” Fatin says. (Her words lack any bite, but Leah still swallows hard.)

“No, I’m just – surprised you’re here instead.”

“Dot can handle herself,” Fatin dismisses. “And if she needs me so badly, she can come join us. I’ve got two arms, you know. I can handle two women at one time.”

Leah shoves at Fatin’s hip, because it’s the closest thing to Leah’s hand, as Fatin laughs. “So are you saying that you think that I need you more?” Leah questions.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Be careful, Fatin. You’re getting a little bold, assuming I need you.”

Fatin huffs. Her hand finds Leah’s, and she links their fingers together (as Leah’s heart suddenly hammers in her chest). “Please. That’s not a very bold statement, Leah. We both know it’s true.” (And Leah can’t even deny it.) “But it’s okay. I don’t know what I’d do without you here, so…I guess you could say I need you too.”

“You guess?”

“Stop!” Fatin laughs. “You know that I’m not good at, like, actual feelings, and I’m really trying, okay?”

“Yeah, and it’s weird, so you can knock it off now,” Leah replies. (But she squeezes Fatin’s hand a little tighter, takes some pleasure from the way Fatin squeezes right back.) Fatin falls asleep not long after that, fingers still intertwined with Leah’s. (And if the others wake up before them in the morning and find them like this, Toni will crack gay jokes about them all day, but it might be worth it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!


	12. 57

On Thursday, someone snaps a picture of Leah, Ian, and Fatin standing next to Fatin’s car, just talking, and it goes around Twitter again. (Well, Leah _is_ sort of staring at Fatin while smiling in a way that one Twitter user said was _lovingly_. Leah begs to differ, but over 5.7k people seem to agree, and that’s just counting retweets.) They drop Ian off at class first before Fatin asks, “We on for after school?”

Leah hesitates. “I told Ian I’d help him with our calc homework,” she says. (And that’s not a lie. She really does have plans to sit in the library with Ian right after school. And Ian really does need her help with calculus. He’s kind of already failing, which must be some sort of record given that their first week isn’t even over.)

“Oh, a calculus date,” Fatin says. “Well, excuse me then.”

“It’s not a date. It’s just Ian.”

Fatin scoffs. “Please. I bet you he wishes it was a date.”

(Leah’s mind flashes back to the tent, to the moment that might’ve destroyed her lifelong friendship with Ian if she hadn’t gotten her ass stranded on an island shortly after. They haven’t talked about it – and Leah doesn’t intend to ever talk about it. She’s more than happy to wipe that unfortunate moment from her memory.) While Fatin doesn’t know why exactly she strikes a nerve with that statement, she knows she’s done it, based on the way Leah’s body stiffens.

“Oh, shit,” Fatin says. “He really –”

“We’re not doing this,” Leah snaps. “Don’t bring it up again.” And she disappears into her classroom and avoids Fatin for the rest of the day. (Which is probably a good thing anyway. Twitter’s already dissecting the “loving” way Leah smiled at Fatin. They don’t need any new material for today.)

**Fatin, 8:34 a.m.** _i won’t bring it up again and we don’t have to talk about it but i’m eating lunch with you two and i’m not taking no for an answer so don’t even try or else twitter is really gonna have some good leatin stuff to talk about today_

Leah almost busts out laughing in her English class. (And it’s crazy how one stupid text from Fatin can unravel all the knots in Leah’s stomach, even as Mrs. Wolfe drones on about Galanis’s stupid book.) The day drags on until lunch, until Fatin joins Leah and Ian on the lawn, as promised.

“What about your other friends?” Ian asks (followed by a sharp, “Ow!” when Leah kicks him in the side of the ass with the toe of her shoe).

“It’s whatever,” Fatin dismisses. “None of them spent almost ninety days trapped on an island with me, so. You know. They don’t _get_ me anymore.”

“You’re just gonna drop all your old friends?” Ian questions, because apparently the one kick wasn’t enough to shut him up.

Fatin shrugs, seemingly unbothered by his questions. “I mean, we go to parties together and shit, but it’s not like we’re having some super intellectual conversations during lunchtime. And I bet you they don’t really miss me, anyway.”

And as Leah anticipates Ian saying something really stupid or really insensitive, he says, “Yeah, well, I guess you could do worse than me and Leah. Maybe you really do have the best taste out of all the Unsinkable Seven. At least, that’s what Buzzfeed says.”

“And when is Buzzfeed ever wrong?” Fatin replies (and it’s weird to see Fatin and Ian sort of hit it off, but it’s also kind of nice). So lunch goes smoothly, and Leah finishes all her homework with Ian in the library after school. She checks her phone as she walks to her car, surprised to see multiple messages from Fatin.

**Fatin, 3:58 p.m.** _so i’m gonna keep reading the pedo’s book hope you don’t mind_

**Fatin, 3:59 p.m.** _i want to get this over with before the party tomorrow cuz it’s a real mood killer_

**Fatin, 4:16 p.m.** _can’t believe i’m really reading a book written by an old man from the pov of an 18 yr old girl who falls for her old ass prof like it’s not okay_

**Fatin, 4:37 p.m.** _I’M SO BORED HELP ME_

**Fatin, 4:44 p.m.** _if i was alone on the island with nothing to do except read this book i’d throw it into the ocean and do nothing until i died_

Leah smiles, gets behind the wheel of her car, but her smile slides as she reaches the last and most recent message from Fatin.

**Fatin, 5:03 p.m.** _call me when you’re done_

Leah chews on the inside of her cheek, debating on whether she should drive home first or just call her now. Leah can’t wait. She calls Fatin, listens as it rings. Fatin picks up after the third ring, simply says, “Leah.”

“Yeah,” Leah says.

“So about the book…” (Fatin sounds unsure, and that’s something that automatically makes Leah’s blood run cold.)

“Just tell me.”

“I – I can’t. I think you’re going to have to read it for yourself. I wouldn’t even know – I mean, there’s no way I could figure out what may or may not – I know I said it was a bad idea for you to read any of it, but I don’t think there’s a way around this.”

“Well, what –” Leah cuts herself off sharply, eyes widening as it hits her. “I’m coming over.”

(She accidentally blows through a stop sign on the way and barely even notices.) Fatin must see Leah pull up, because the front door opens before Leah’s even out of her car. Leah’s halfway up the driveway when she realizes Fatin’s coming out to meet her, and before Leah can ask what she’s doing, Fatin motions toward her car.

“Come on,” Fatin says gently, resting her hand against Leah’s lower back. (Leah’s eyes flick over toward the open garage, toward the two cars lined up beside the yellow Audi, and she understands.) Leah gets back in her car, and before she can ask if they’re just going to sit outside Fatin’s house, Fatin asks, “You think your parents will mind if I crash at your place tonight?”

(And Leah must really be starting to spiral, because it’s just now that she realizes Fatin has thrown her bag into the backseat, definitely packed for an overnight stay. More than an overnight stay, maybe, but Fatin is a notorious over-packer, so Leah isn’t sure.)

“They’ll get over it if they do,” Leah answers. She drives fast – faster than she normally ever would – because her mind throws all sorts of possibilities at her. (He could’ve written _anything_ about her, and whatever it is, Fatin can’t describe it, wouldn’t even know where to begin. But maybe it’s not about her at all. Maybe he just made it up – that’s literally his job, right? To make shit up? So maybe it’s not about her. Maybe it’s all fake, but that feels unlikely.)

“Leah,” Fatin says sharply. (But her voice wavers, just a little bit, just noticeably.) “Slow down. Please.”

Leah eases up on the accelerator, snagging her lower lip between her teeth. She grips the steering wheel tightly, thumbs tapping against it incessantly. Fatin leans over, pressing her fingertips into the top of Leah’s thigh, and Leah stops tapping. (They’re almost there, anyway.) Leah parks haphazardly in the driveway, knowing her dad will bitch about her bad park job later (but she’s not quite able to bring herself to care). Leah grabs her backpack and Fatin’s bag from the backseat and leads the way inside, throwing the door open unceremoniously.

“Fatin’s here,” she tells her parents.

“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. R,” Fatin greets. (She closes the front door behind them.)

“Fatin,” both Leah’s parents say in return before their eyes shift to Leah.

“It was a last minute sort of thing,” Leah mutters.

“No, that’s fine,” her mother assures her. “We weren’t really planning on doing anything for dinner –”

“We’ll figure it out,” Leah grunts. She leads the way to her room, dumps both their bags in the corner, and locks the door.

“Your parents are going to think something’s wrong.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Leah dismisses. “You’re here. They won’t worry about me.”

She throws herself down on her bed, shifts over to make enough room for Fatin to join her. Fatin watches Leah warily, but she grabs the book and gingerly sits beside Leah. She knocks Leah’s arm aside when Leah tries to grab the book.

“Let me find the passage,” Fatin says.

“What's the context?”

Fatin sighs softly. “I don’t think you’re going to need context, honey.” Fatin flips to the page, points to exactly where Leah should start and stop reading, then hands the book over. Leah tries to steel herself, tries to stop her heart from hammering in her throat, but it doesn’t matter. Once her eyes hit the page, it’s hard to stop. (His writing style is the same as his last book. Of course it is. And it’s etched into her mind, woven through her brain. Even if the words and the story are different, it feels the same.) Fatin stares at Leah the entire time, but it’s easy to block out, easy to forget Fatin is so close to her as her eyes glide along the pages.

Leah’s vision blurs as it starts to sink in, as she starts back at the beginning of the scene, and she swipes impatiently at the tears because she can’t believe it yet. (How _could_ he? How could he _dare_ to recreate the first time they’d slept together in some sleazy fictional way, and for what? There are too many details to deny, and being stabbed a thousand times would probably hurt less than reading _this_ , than knowing _Fatin_ read it first, and thousands of other people are reading it, too. And even if they don’t know it was real, even if they don’t know it _happened_ , Leah knows, and fucking Jeff Galanis knows, and that’s bad enough.) So she reads it again. And the _fucking details_ are accurate, and she doesn’t know if she’s more angry than upset or if it’s the other way around.

“Leah,” Fatin says quietly.

“Stop.”

“No. You stop,” Fatin says, still gentle, but the way she pries the book out of Leah’s hands is anything but gentle.

“It’s – that’s – he – how could he –” Leah can’t complete her thought, can’t think of a way to put it into words. (Her brain can barely comprehend it still.)

“I know.”

And that’s enough to break her. She doesn’t have the strength to fight Fatin off when she pulls Leah into her, Leah’s face pressing into Fatin’s chest, Fatin’s arms locking around her. (Fatin’s hands tangling in her hair, Fatin murmuring soothing words as Leah cries herself out, soaks the front of Fatin’s shirt with tears. And Leah tries to push Fatin away, more than once, but she won’t budge, refuses to let go. And now, thanks to this stupid fucking book, Fatin _knows_ , and the world _knows_ , and Leah doesn’t know how to handle it, doesn’t know what to do. And she hasn’t felt this bad since he first left.)

Leah wakes up hours later, when it’s dark outside, to find herself still entwined with Fatin. And Fatin’s still up, reading by lamplight, almost at the end of that godforsaken book. (Fatin holds the book above her face with one hand, her other arm wrapped securely around Leah.) Fatin sets it aside as Leah stirs, lifts her head off of Fatin’s chest, pulls away.

“You’re still reading,” Leah croaks, and she finds a water bottle suddenly hanging in front of her face. (She takes it.)

“Might as well,” Fatin replies. “I need to know how it ends. How do you feel?”

Leah chugs water for a few moments then grunts. She chooses to ignore Fatin’s question, goes straight for, “Sorry about your shirt.”

Fatin glances down at her chest then busts out laughing. “Please. I’ve worn much worse than a bit of your makeup, Leah. I’m not worried about the shirt. I’m worried about you.”

“That’s – I mean, that was _it_ ,” Leah whispers, and that’s enough to cause tears to well up in her eyes again.

“Yeah,” Fatin says. Her fingers curl around Leah’s arm. “Come back here.”

As Leah presses her ear to the center of Fatin’s chest again (as she tries desperately to keep the tears at bay), Fatin switches the lamp off and wraps both arms around Leah.

“So?” Leah prompts. “What’s happening?”

“He’s breaking up with her,” Fatin says. (Leah’s eyes close, and she tries to focus on the scent of Fatin’s perfume, tries to focus on the beating of Fatin’s heart, on each breath that Fatin takes.) “He’s choosing his wife, of course. The goddamn story is, like, hinting that Lila’s gonna get over it and be fine or whatever, but the whole thing is shitty, that’s for sure.”

Leah nods against Fatin’s chest, exhales. “Okay.”

“You can tell Mrs. Wolfe that the book’s an exploitive piece of shit.”

*

“How have we spent fifty seven fucking days out here without dying of boredom?” Toni whines. She rakes her fingers through the sand, glaring at nothing and no one in particular.

“Because we spend half our time searching for food and the other half of our time sleeping?” Rachel quips.

“Please,” Toni scoffs. “You haven’t been on food duty since that shark ate your hand.”

“That’s a low blow, Shalifoe,” Rachel says. She throws a handful of wet sand over at Toni, covers her mouth when it smacks against the side of Toni’s neck and slides into her shirt. “And it’s not my fault you guys all collectively decided I don’t have to participate in food duty because you think I’m fragile or some bullshit.”

Toni swipes the sand from her neck, flicks it off her hand. “I’m gonna let that one slide, because you have one hand,” Toni sneers.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“But next time, we’re fighting.”

“I’ll fight you right now.”

“Wow, y’all must really be bored,” Shelby interrupts. “As much as I’d love to place bets on the Reid-Shalifoe fight, maybe we should all settle down instead. I don’t really want to be treating broken noses or busted knuckles.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Fatin says, and everyone else groans. “Hey! You haven’t even heard it yet.”

“What’s your idea, Fatin?” Dot asks. (The irritation in her voice is faked, but even so, Fatin shoves at Dot’s arm and grins.)

“Let’s all tell our most embarrassing sex story.”

“God, no,” Rachel whines at the same time that Dot says, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Come on. We could all use a good laugh,” Fatin says. “I’ll even go first.”

“You probably have more of those stories than all the rest of us combined,” Rachel says.

“Which means I have more sex than all the rest of you combined, and that’s something to be proud of,” Fatin replies, flashing a smile.

“We can’t just tell, like, plain embarrassing stories?” Martha questions. “You guys _know_ I don’t have any embarrassing sex stories.”

“Martha, baby,” Fatin says, “then you’re totally off the hook. You get to enjoy the free entertainment without having to contribute.”

“You said you’re going first,” Rachel says pointedly. She waves her hand at Fatin. “So, hello? Go first.”

Everyone’s eyes track Fatin as she gets to her feet. “I need someone to help me demonstrate,” she declares. “It’ll be so much funnier that way. So Dorothy, please be a doll and –”

“I’m not getting under you.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a pussy,” Fatin complains.

“Oh, no, you aren’t roping me into this one,” Dot says. “I’d much rather tell the story of the time this guy landed me in the hospital, and that’s not the story I was planning to tell.”

(“Wait, now you have to tell us,” Toni says.)

“You’re just afraid you’re gonna want some of this,” Fatin says, and Dot laughs so hard, she can’t speak. “Alright, if Dot’s gonna be a pussy, I need someone else. I’ll take volunteers.”

“That’s a hard no from us,” Toni says, motioning between her and Shelby.

“Sorry, Fatin, but I don’t really want my first time to be with you,” Martha says (and Toni chokes on her water).

“Don’t even look at me,” Rachel warns.

“I guess it’s me and you, Leah,” Fatin says.

“No, I’m good –”

“Come on, Leah!” Rachel heckles. “Looks like you’re the only one here that can handle Fatin.”

Fatin holds her hand out, motioning for Leah to move closer. “C’mon. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I’m not –”

“I just need to give everyone a visual so they can fully appreciate my story,” Fatin says. “I’m not actually gonna fuck you in front of everyone. Please. I have standards.”

Before Leah can try to protest again, Toni leads the other girls in egging Leah (and Fatin) on, and they won’t quit until Leah grudgingly slides herself over. “Okay, so what –?” Leah starts, but Fatin immediately shoves her onto her back on the sand and straddles her hips.

“You can just stay quiet, honey,” Fatin says. “I’m telling the story.”

Leah barely hears the story. It’s hard when Fatin’s hips are pinning hers to the ground, with Fatin’s hand still pressing against the center of Leah’s chest to keep her down while she mimes – for everyone else’s enjoyment – exactly what she did that was so embarrassing. It doesn’t help that Fatin forces Leah to hold onto her waist in return. (Her _bare_ waist, because Fatin has been less inclined to wear much more than a bra the last few weeks, at least when she doesn’t have to.) It also doesn’t help that Fatin smells fucking incredible, because she’s been bathing in perfume since they got here and _still_ hasn’t run out. Probably because the perfume is one of the few things Fatin refuses to share with anyone. (“You’re all wearing my underwear. The least you can do is let me have the perfume.”)

Words leave Fatin’s mouth, but Leah can’t hear them while Fatin’s grinding her hips into Leah’s, while Fatin’s hand is pressing on her chest (and Leah hopes to God that Fatin can’t feel how hard her heart is pumping). But then Fatin pauses her movement and says, “And I shit you not, the entire fucking shelf came down right on us. Like, books and this model of a car, and like, a broken alarm clock. And the clock hit him in the head, but at least I dodged all the books.”

And as everyone dies of laughter, Leah’s head spins. (Toni falls into Shelby’s lap, unable to catch her breath, and Leah isn’t sure if she’s laughing at the story that she missed the first 90% of or if Toni’s laughing at the dumbfounded look on Leah’s face. It must’ve been seriously funny, though, because Martha’s banging her fist on Marcus’s chest, equally as unable to catch her breath. Dot’s just smirking, shaking her head, and even Rachel’s trying to cover up her snickering with her hand.)

“You just had to hold onto the shelf, didn’t you?” Dot jokes. “You couldn’t have put your hands, like, anywhere else?”

“I was really feeling it, okay?” Fatin defends.

“You must still be feeling it, because you’re still sitting on poor Leah,” Rachel calls.

Fatin scoffs. “You don’t mind, do you, Leah?”

“Yeah, this is the most action either of you have gotten in at least two months,” Toni snorts. (No one else knows that they kissed on day sixteen.)

Fatin grins, and Leah musters up a weak smile (only because both Fatin and Toni are staring at her, which means the others probably are, too, trying to gauge her reaction). “Yeah, well, as fun as that was,” Leah says (as sarcastically as she can manage), “I think it’s time for you to get off me, Fatin.”

“Get off of you, or get off on you?” Fatin teases. She cocks an eyebrow at Leah, starts trailing her fingertips from the center of Leah’s chest toward her stomach. And that’s all Leah can take.

“Of. Definitely of,” Leah splutters. She knocks Fatin’s hand away then starts pushing herself up, expecting Fatin to move off of her. But Fatin holds her ground, and then they’re face to face, nose to nose, nearly chest to chest. (And Fatin wears this infuriating little smirk, but Leah kind of has no choice but to look her in the eye.) The rest of the group gets _very_ quiet. At first.

Toni recovers the quickest and shouts, “Get it, Fatin!”

“Move,” Leah says through her teeth. “Or we’re going to have a repeat of the shelter building competition.”

Fatin shrugs nonchalantly, finally shifts backward. “No need to be so uptight. Geez. So? Who’s going next?”

“I don’t know if anyone can top you pulling a shelf down on your guy’s head,” Martha chuckles. “Except maybe the time that Toni –”

“Let’s not,” Toni cuts in.

“I guess maybe I shouldn’t admit this,” Shelby says, startling Toni, “but Toni and I, you know, did it for the first time under the lychee tree when –”

“When we were all fucking starving?” Fatin exclaims. “I mean, good for you, get it, but seriously? We were _dying_ and you two were fucking in the woods?”

Then everyone’s laughing again, and Toni tries to deflect the attention by shouting, “Hey, Dot! Tell us what landed you in the hospital!” and no one’s paying any attention to Leah. (Except Fatin glances over at her more than once while Dot caves and explains how exactly this guy dislocated her shoulder during sex and had to drive her to the ER in the middle of the night.)

“And the guy wasn’t even any good, so the dislocated shoulder wasn’t even worth it,” Dot says. “I did get him to pay for my ER visit, though, since he felt so guilty.”

“Leah? What about you?” Rachel asks.

“Oh…no,” Leah says, shaking her head. “I fucked an old guy that I had the misfortune of falling in love with even though it was illegal, so. And I had to help Fatin demonstrate her story. I think I deserve a pass on this one.”

“I think that’s a fair point,” Dot says. “So Rachel, you’re up.”

Rachel smirks. “Buckle up, guys. You’re in for a wild ride.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.


	13. 20

Friday morning, Leah wakes up in her bed, but she’s not alone. Her head’s still resting on Fatin’s chest, hand pressed against Fatin’s hip. Leah inhales sharply, lifts her head and rolls to the unoccupied side of the bed.

“Good morning.”

And now she looks stupid for moving away so fast. “We have school,” Leah blurts. “Why aren’t we – it’s _late_.”

“Yeah, your mom popped in, like, two hours ago,” Fatin says. “I told her you had a rough night, and she called us both out sick today.”

“Can she even do that?” Leah wonders aloud.

Fatin laughs. “I mean, she did, so. I guess yeah.”

Leah pauses then motions toward Fatin. “And she – saw us – like that, and she was –”

“I told her we aren’t dating. It’s all rumors. I like men. You know. The whole thing. She didn’t ask too many questions.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“Just that she’s happy you have a friend that understands what you’re going through.”

Leah pauses again, pressing her lips together. “Yeah, stop talking to my mom.”

Fatin laughs. “I really couldn’t avoid it, sweetheart. I was sorta trapped under you, remember? Not that I minded.” As Fatin winks, Leah rolls her eyes and gets out of bed. “Seriously, though,” Fatin says as Leah grabs something to change into. “It’s nice not having to sleep alone.”

“I know,” Leah says. “I mean, can you blame us? Three months on an island, sleeping surrounded by other people? Sleeping alone just, like, invites nightmares.”

“Didn’t seem like you had any.”

Leah hesitates. “No, actually, I didn’t,” she says. Fatin’s eyes drop from Leah’s face to the bundle of clothes in her hands.

“You can’t wear that,” Fatin says.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t –”

“I mean, there’s a party tonight,” Fatin interrupts. “Why do you think I packed a whole-ass bag for a one night stay? So if you put that on now, just know I’m going to make you take it off later.”

Leah’s eyebrows raise. “Was that supposed to sound sexual or…?”

Fatin laughs. “No, it just kind of worked out nicely, didn’t it? But I’m deadass. I won’t be seen at a party with you if you wear that.”

“Relax,” Leah says. “I’ll let you help me with my outfit _later_. I’m gonna shower. My parents are both at work, so help yourself to anything while I’m gone.”

“You know, instead of showering after you, we could conserve water if I just –”

“No.”

“Jesus, you won’t even let me finish the joke?” Fatin laughs. “You’re no fucking fun, Rilke.”

Leah grins, and Fatin grins right back at her, still tangled in Leah’s sheets. (And the sight of her _friend_ all wrapped up in her sheets really shouldn’t make Leah feel anything. But her _friend_ has also kissed her four times – well, technically three if Leah concedes that she kissed Fatin while she was high, so Leah supposes she can only attribute three to Fatin, and the last one, she was drunk as hell, so maybe it doesn’t count? And the one before that, Fatin was emotionally vulnerable, so maybe that one doesn’t count either. And the one in the bunker was just because Fatin was overjoyed to see a familiar face after days of isolation, and Leah had set it up with her stupid ass letters, so maybe that doesn’t count, either. And Leah was high when she kissed Fatin, and Fatin was high, too, so really, maybe none of them count as anything real. Right? But even if Leah doesn’t wipe away the memory of kissing Fatin – four times – she still really shouldn’t be overanalyzing the way Fatin’s tangled up in her sheets.)

“If you keep standing there staring at me, I’m gonna finish the joke,” Fatin warns. “Go shower. I’m gonna track down Buster.”

“He’s probably on the couch,” Leah replies. When she emerges from the bathroom, freshly showered, dressed in sweats and a baggy T-shirt, she finds Fatin in her bed still, albeit with Buster sitting in her lap now.

“He likes me better than you,” Fatin says, stroking her fingers through his fur.

“Traitor,” Leah mutters. (And it only sinks in then that Fatin’s going to spend the rest of the day – and quite possibly another night – with Leah.)

“I had an idea,” Fatin says suddenly. “Thought I’d run it past you.”

“Okay?” Leah prompts. She leans back against her desk, raises her eyebrows at Fatin. “So what is it? Don’t ask to shower together.”

Fatin barely even cracks a smile, and Leah’s muscles tense up. It’s something serious, then. “How about we have a bonfire?” Fatin asks. “Or I guess it doesn’t have to be, like, an actual bonfire. I just think –” She cuts herself off then leans over to snatch _The Road That Leads Backwards_ off the nightstand. “We’ve got something to burn,” Fatin says. “And I don’t know, maybe it’ll be cathartic.”

“Cathartic,” Leah repeats. (Her voice sounds faint to her own ears.) She crosses her arms over her chest, gnawing on her lower lip. She shrugs. “I mean, I guess. As long as we don’t burn the house down.”

“Do you have a wood burning fireplace, or is it like gas or some shit?” Fatin asks. She gently nudges Buster until he moves then gets to her feet. “Because if it’s wood burning, we can just burn it from the comfort of your living room.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”

So they do. And they sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace and watch Jeff Galanis’s stupid fucking book turn to ash. (Buster chooses to sit in Fatin’s lap instead of Leah’s, but Leah doesn’t let it bother her. She’s too busy watching the book burn, too busy trying not to think about how her knee is pressed right against Fatin’s, how Fatin’s elbow rests against Leah’s thigh, even though Fatin doesn’t seem to notice. No, Fatin’s scratching behind Buster’s ear and cooing at him. Fatin isn’t sitting here overthinking the way their knees touch. Friends don’t do that – so why is Leah obsessing over it?)

(She’s afraid she already knows the answer, but she shoves that shit right aside.)

“You know I’ll throw hands on sight if I ever run into that motherfucker, right?” Fatin says.

“Huh?”

“Galanis. I’ll straight up fucking murder him, and you’ll have to come bail me out of jail.”

Leah smiles (and she doesn’t even have to try, doesn’t have to force it – it just comes naturally). “Don’t go down for murdering him. It’s not even worth it.”

“It would totally be worth it.”

“Then you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison, and what good does that do me?” Leah says before she thinks about it.

“Aw, you’d miss me,” Fatin teases. She leans into Leah, resting her cheek against Leah’s shoulder. “Fine. I’ll try to stay out of prison. Just for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, come on! I gotta start getting ready.”

“The party’s not for another –”

“I need hours,” Fatin interrupts. “Like, at least three, and that’s not even counting the time I’ll need to get you ready, so we better get started.”

Buster follows them back up to Leah’s room, makes himself right at home in the center of Leah’s bed. Leah joins him before long, once it’s clear that Fatin brought at least five outfits to model for Leah and get her opinions on. It takes her over an hour just to commit to an outfit. (And it’s the dress that makes Leah’s mouth go instantly dry, makes it hard for her to breathe. The dress is a shimmery silver, hitting just below Fatin’s ass, tight in all the right places.)

“Yeah?” Fatin asks for the thirtieth time. “This is the one, right?”

“Yeah,” Leah says weakly. “Definitely.”

“That’s what I thought. Alright, cool. We gotta figure out what you’re wearing before I move onto my makeup. Actually, I brought you something, and you’re at least trying it on.” (And before Leah can protest, Fatin throws a shirt straight into her chest.) “I’ve never worn it, actually. I was supposed to wear it to this one performance but it got cancelled because, no shit, everyone except me got food poisoning. And you can’t complain too much. It’s a black shirt, and it has buttons, so deal with it.”

“I don’t –”

“And I’ll even let you wear it with this.” Fatin grabs Leah’s pair of black jeans (the ones with the rips in the thighs) and throws those at Leah’s chest, too. “But we’re putting your hair up, since I’m compromising here.” (And there’s no point in arguing. Leah already knows Fatin won’t budge, so she strips off her sweats and T-shirt and changes.) Leah’s just buttoning the top button of the shirt as Fatin hums, shakes her head. “Honey, no.” She crosses over to where Leah’s standing at the foot of the bed, brushes Leah’s hands aside. “This is too goddamn formal. Pop a couple buttons, baby.” (Leah doesn’t have to. Fatin does it for her.) “Actually, you know…you should go braless. It’ll work.”

“I –” Leah groans in protest instead of finishing her sentence. (She caves. Of course she fucking caves. It’s _Fatin_ , and it’s kind of worth it to see the appreciative smirk on Fatin’s face.) Fatin rolls the sleeves to Leah’s forearms, for no good reason, really. (Fatin doesn’t offer Leah an explanation, at least.)

“Alright, sit your ass down. I’m doing your hair, then I’ll handle my makeup and you can help me choose between shoes.”

“Don’t do anything too elaborate,” Leah warns.

“I’m not,” Fatin assures her. “I’m thinking, like, a simple messy bun.” Fatin gathers Leah’s hair in her hands, tests it out. “Yeah. Definitely. You look totally hot with your hair up.” (Leah’s heart stalls momentarily, but outwardly, she just winces.) “That was a compliment, Rilke,” Fatin says, knocking her hand against Leah’s shoulder. “Take it.”

“Thank you?”

Fatin finishes Leah’s hair then grabs her by the shoulders, leans her weight into her. “I won’t fight you on makeup,” Fatin says, digging her (short, freshly painted – silver, as if Fatin already knew about the dress and wasted an hour of their time modeling outfits just to show off or something) nails into Leah’s shoulders. “But, I’m just nicely suggesting, we should do something to make your eyes pop.”

“I’m not doing it,” Leah says flatly. “But…” (She’s so going to regret this. She’s going to regret it so badly.) “You can.”

Fatin literally squeals, releases Leah’s shoulders to clap her hands together. “Great! Let’s get started.” (And there goes another two hours, at least. Leah loses track as she watches Fatin work meticulously, get every detail right on her own face then turn her attention to Leah.) “So,” Fatin says, twisting Leah’s desk chair around so Leah can look up at her. “Do you trust me?”

Leah swallows hard. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Perfect. If you really hate it when I’m done, we’ll wipe it away and start over, okay? We’ve got plenty of time.”

So Fatin gets to work. (And Leah tries to shut her mind off, tries to focus on breathing normally while Fatin lingers in her space.)

“You know,” Leah says after they spend a fair amount of time in (completely comfortable) silence. “The last party I went to, I jerked this guy off in his car. Like, right in front of the house that this party was at.”

Fatin quickly pulls her hand away to prevent herself from fucking up Leah’s makeup as she busts out laughing, literally doubling over. “No way,” Fatin says.

“Mm-hmm. And then I got hit by a car, like, I don’t know. Ten minutes later?”

“ _What_?”

Leah cracks a smile at the horrified look on Fatin’s face. “Fun times,” Leah says. “You know what the best part is?”

“None of that makes it sound like there was a best part.”

“I don’t even remember the guy’s name,” Leah laughs.

“Obviously he was unremarkable then,” Fatin replies. And she gets back to work. “Was he at least hot?”

“Sorta? I mean, at the time I thought so, but looking back…yeah, not my best decision. I didn’t even get anything out of it.”

“You know the advice I always give. Or, at least, I gave it to Martha. I don’t think she really appreciated it, though.”

“What’s that?” Leah asks.

“Skip the handy.” Fatin takes a step back to appraise her work. “Okay, I’m done.” She swivels Leah back around, placing her in front of the mirror. “You legit look hot, Rilke, so please, don’t make me wipe all that off and start again.”

(Fatin’s kind of magical when it comes to this sort of stuff. Leah’s stunned. By herself. How weird is that?)

“I know. I’m good,” Fatin boasts. “I’m gonna get my shoes on, then we can grab dinner – it’s on me, but we’re not getting anything that’s messy. Then we’re gonna go to the party. Sound like a plan?”

“Okay,” Leah agrees. (She doesn’t know what else to do.)

“You can just wear your Converse or whatever. But if you do, you have to wear the black ones. It’s not a debate.”

“Okay.”

The Converse land at Leah’s feet before Fatin slips into her heels (the ones that match her dress and also provide her with a couple extra inches of height). “So let’s get going,” Fatin says.

*

By day twenty, they’ve mostly lost hope that rescue is coming. That night, they sit around the fire (most of them with their knees pulled to their chest, as though that’ll stop their hunger pains) in silence. No jokes. No stories. No fun. Toni’s head rests on Martha’s shoulder, eyes closed even though she’s as awake as the rest of them. (It’s getting harder and harder to sleep knowing they have no food, knowing rescue was _so close_ but isn’t coming, knowing they’re starving and _feeling_ real, actual starvation for the first time ever.)

“Tomorrow, man, we’ve got to get serious about finding food,” Dot says. “I mean it. We’re going out there, and we aren’t coming back until we have _something_.”

“We’ve been trying,” Nora points out. “What can we do differently tomorrow than we did today? Or yesterday?”

“We can try harder,” Dot insists.

“We can’t risk eating anything poisonous,” Nora says. “We know we can eat seaweed, so we should just –”

“There isn’t enough of it,” Rachel cuts in. “Not right now, at least. Not that we’re seeing.”

“Look, we’re all running low on energy,” Dot says. “So we need to seriously pull it together for a day and find something big.”

“Maybe we should just give it up,” Leah mutters. (She’s been spiraling for days, basically since rescue didn’t show up within a few hours. Really, since right after she came down from her high, since right after she kissed Fatin and they still haven’t bothered to talk about it or act like it even happened.)

“Leah, no,” Dot says at the same time that Fatin grasps onto her knee. (Leah tries to pry Fatin’s hand off of her, doesn’t have enough energy to break Fatin’s grip.) “Tomorrow will be better.”

“Tomorrow we might be dead,” Leah retorts. “Where are those fucking pills? At least that’d be fucking faster.” (And that comment is what earns her a twenty four hour surveillance rotation to make sure she doesn’t off herself, at least until they find food.)

“Guys,” Martha says. “You know that one song by Journey? The overplayed one.”

“ _Don’t Stop Believin’_ ,” Toni groans. “Yeah. I think we all know.”

“We’re gonna sing it. Right now,” Martha says. “No. None of you get to argue with me. I’ve listened to you whine about how hungry you are, all day, for the past three days. I’m hungry, too. I’m dying of boredom, too. And Leah’s sitting here talking about offing ourselves, so please. Sing the damn song with me.”

And after an extended pause (where Dot and Fatin exchange a skeptical look, where Rachel rolls her eyes and shakes her head), it’s Toni of all fucking people that starts them off. And if fucking _Toni Shalifoe_ can sing the opening line, by herself, well shit. The rest of them can at least do both her and Martha a favor and join in. (And they are very flat. They sound half-dead, unsurprisingly, except Shelby can clearly sing. She sounds fucking exhausted; they all do, but Shelby has real talent. And they all sing the fucking song, all the way through, and Dot only fucks the words up once.) Even Rachel sings, as annoyed as she looks the entire time. And as strained as Leah’s voice is (as strained as her _mind_ is), she makes it all the way through, too.

And it doesn’t fix any of their problems. Of course it doesn’t. (Leah catches Shelby swiping at her cheeks as the entire group falls silent together.) They’re all still starving. Leah’s still spiraling. But when they finish, Martha smiles brightly, looks mildly pleased with herself. And it took Leah’s mind away from all the _shit_ swirling in her brain for a few minutes, at least. And now they all know Shelby’s pageant talk wasn’t just talk, and they know that Fatin might be able to play the fucking cello so well that it gets her into Juilliard, but she _cannot_ for the life of her sing in a way that sounds even halfway decent.

(And Fatin continues to hold onto Leah’s knee, and it might be the only thing keeping Leah rooted in reality.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've already said one of my favorite chapters is chapter 14, coming up next. Y'all aren't ready. But I am pretty excited to share it with you. (If you all really care, chapter 3 has my favorite island scene, and chapter 14 has my favorite present scene. It's very close between the two as to which one is my ultimate favorite, but it's probably 14. And I also like the very last chapter of this fic and have a feeling you all will, too.) 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you all for being so amazing. I love you. I love hearing your thoughts in the comments, and I do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight if you wanna yell at me some more lol. (And I have a feeling some of you might want to yell at me soon.)


	14. 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. The long awaited fourteenth chapter. I hope it lives up to the hype.

This is _so_ not Leah’s scene. College frat parties? Yeah, no. As she stands on the sidewalk in front of the house, her teeth sink into her lower lip, and she hooks both her thumbs in her back pockets.

“Nervous?” Fatin asks. (And it’s not a joke. Fatin’s not making fun of her. It’s just a straight up, genuine question.)

Leah looks up at Fatin, because that’s a thing she has to do when Fatin wears heels and she doesn’t. She has to look up (and she doesn’t like it). “Yeah,” Leah admits. “I don’t…really do this.”

Fatin smiles reassuringly, winks, then links her arm through Leah’s. “Don’t worry. You have me.”

Leah huffs. (Like Fatin’s not going to bolt the second she lays eyes on some hot college guy. And Leah is Fatin’s ride, so it’s not like she can just ditch.) “What? We aren’t here to find you a man for the night?”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “I mean, if we could find one willing to come between fucking _Leatin_.”

“No threesomes.”

“God, I know,” Fatin laughs. (Leah cracks a small smile as Fatin squeezes her arm harder, leads the way inside.) Maybe Fatin doesn’t notice it (or maybe she’s just used to it) but it’s like all the eyes in the room are drawn to her when she steps into a room. (Like it could ever be any other way. Fatin’s fucking gorgeous, and that’s just a fact. And she doesn’t need the too-short dress or the heels or full face of makeup or massive hoops to make it so. She could show up, fresh off the island, and still turn heads.)

“Fatin,” the first guy (definitely won’t be the last) of the night greets. (He’s tall. Taller than Fatin in her heels. His shirt’s at least one size too small for him, obviously chosen because he wants everyone to know he works out. He’s… a conventionally attractive white boy? Leah doesn’t know how else to describe him. Like, he’s hot, but there’s probably not much substance to him apart from his looks and gym routine.) And he’s probably someone Fatin has fucked in the past, because his (blue) eyes start at her face but end up somewhere around her chest as Fatin stares him straight in the face.

“Cody,” Fatin says (and she couldn’t sound more uninterested if she tried, and for some reason, that makes Leah borderline giddy).

“So this is Leah?” he questions, motioning toward Leah with the hand holding his beer. “I heard you two are, like, a thing now?”

“Yeah, whatever, that’s not really your business,” Fatin says. “Where’s the alcohol?”

(And then Leah remembers she should probably watch how much Fatin drinks, should probably try to control her if that’s even possible.) Cody just points in the direction, and Fatin drags Leah along.

“Maybe we should take it easy,” Leah says as Fatin downs her first cup and moves to refill it before they’ve even left the room.

“I want to have fun,” Fatin replies. “And a couple drinks will make it easier, so. Drink a bit, and we’ll go dance.”

So Leah drinks a bit. And they dance. And Leah tries hard not to notice all the guys just openly staring – though a solid half of them are more interested in staring at Fatin’s ass than at the two of them (but Leah doesn’t know what’s worse – guys staring at Fatin’s ass or guys staring at them because they believe the social media rumors that “Leatin” is real).

“You know, they’re staring because they think we’re lesbians,” Leah finally says when Fatin’s arms rest against her shoulders as Fatin continues dancing, unbothered. “And they probably think they can, like, get in on it.”

“Yeah, and?”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Fatin grins. “No, because I know they aren’t getting any, even if they don’t know it. Relax. Let them stare. I won’t let anything happen.”

Leah swallows, nods slightly, tries to block out all the (unwanted) outside attention, and for _once_ , Leah tries to do nothing but focus on Fatin. (That always seems to come with its own set of problems though, doesn’t it?) There’s just enough alcohol coursing through Leah’s veins for her to feel comfortable placing her hands on Fatin’s hips, for her to dance with Fatin without overthinking it (too much). Leah has made peace with the idea that there’ll be photos of them all over Twitter in the morning.

“I’m gonna find the bathroom,” Fatin says, right next to Leah’s ear, and Leah inhales sharply. “You can come with, if you want, or –”

“You go,” Leah says quickly. “I’ll find you after.”

Fatin nods, squeezes Leah’s shoulders briefly before slipping away. Leah heads for the kitchen (she’s not drunk enough to dance by herself, and she’s definitely not drunk enough to make a move and find someone to dance with) and gets herself another drink.

“Hey, you’re Leah, right?”

(And Leah would sigh, if this wasn’t so predictable.)

“Yeah,” she says. And she turns around and – _okay_ , now _this_ guy is _hot_. (Like, hot by Fatin’s standards, sure, but also, like, in a way that Leah can vibe with. And he’s taller than her, which is a nice bonus. So maybe she won’t reject him instantly.) “Um,” she says (so eloquently, and yeah, this whole talking to hot, only slightly older guys at frat parties isn’t really her thing). “What’s up?” (God, she would cringe at herself if this really hot guy wasn’t looking at her.)

“This is gonna sound a little weird,” he says, “but I follow Fatin on Twitter, right? And she tweeted out not that long ago that all those, uh, Leatin? Is that what they’re calling you?”

“Ugh, God,” Leah groans, rolling her eyes. “Yeah. They are.”

“She tweeted that all those rumors aren’t true? And that you’re just friends? Is that…or I guess it’s totally not my place to ask –”

“We aren’t together,” Leah confirms. “We’re just friends, and someone blew this way up for some reason. So…yeah. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“James,” he says, and he fucking offers Leah his hand. (And she shakes it, like, right away.) “Um, I probably should’ve planned to say something before I walked over here?” he says, laughing uncertainly. “Something besides, _hi, I’m James and I’m an English major_?”

Leah grins, laughs with him this time. “Well, hi, I’m Leah,” she says. “And since you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably seen plenty about me.”

“Yeah, but how much of that can really be true?” he says, shaking his head. “I mean, the whole Leatin thing isn’t real, apparently, but everyone’s acting like it is. I’m sure a lot of what goes around are straight lies.”

(But not all of it. Some of it is scarily accurate, but it seems like the more accurate stuff gets buried in the lies.)

“Yeah, I’ll give you that,” Leah says, and she doesn’t know why they’re both grinning at each other, blames some of it on the alcohol.

And then James the English major holds his hand out and says, “I hope this isn’t, like, way too forward, but would you like to dance?”

“ _Way too forward_ is, like, my thing,” Leah giggles. ( _Giggles?_ And no, _way too forward_ is _not_ Leah’s thing, but this guy is cute and doesn’t give off total creeper vibes, and Leah’s tipsy and the attention is sort of nice and his eyes are pretty, and he’s an English major. It’s like he was perfectly tailored for her, like God or something dropped him here to remind her that there are other people in this world besides fucking Jeff Galanis that she can at least be attracted to, if not totally into.) And right as Leah lays her hand against his, a hand grabs her shoulder and she whips around.

She doesn’t know who she’s expecting, but for some reason, she’s surprised to see Fatin. (Definitely surprised by the fire in Fatin’s eyes – maybe even something close to anger? And Fatin’s jaw is definitely clenched.)

“Fatin?” Leah says. “Are you –?”

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” she asks.

“I –” Leah looks back at James, at their clasped hands, and her eyebrows pull together. “Is it urgent? Because I was about to, like –”

“Yeah, it’s urgent.”

(So Leah has to apologize to James, and he’s way too nice about it, promises to catch up with her later. And maybe he assumes it’s something to do with the island. Shit, Leah’s assuming something happened between the moment she and Fatin separated and now. Leah also assumes it’s something to do with the island, some memory or some shit.) Fatin doesn’t speak until they’re standing on the back patio (where there’s a game of beer pong being carried on, and people are in the pool – fully clothed and drunk as shit). Fatin grips onto Leah’s hand, tightly, and she doesn’t release it even when they stop walking.

“Did something happen?” Leah finally prompts. “Because we can go, no questions asked.”

“No, it’s not –” Fatin cuts herself off, shakes her head. (Leah waits, studying Fatin’s expression for any hints as to what might be going on. The emotion that might’ve been anger earlier is gone, replaced by something…unsure. Leah can’t quite get a read on it, but Leah’s on her way to drunk, and Fatin’s fairly tipsy herself. So who knows?) “It’s not that,” Fatin says. (Meaning: it has nothing to do with the island and/or the related trauma.)

“Then what’s the – have you slept with that guy? Is that why –?”

“No! No, not at all. He’s, like, so not my type.”

“Then what’s the –?” And Leah goes silent as her (slightly tipsy, possibly overreacting) brain puts the pieces together. “You didn’t want me to go with him.”

“That is _not_ –”

“No, it’s totally true,” Leah interrupts. She yanks her hand away. “Oh my God. I get the attention of _one_ guy, literally _once_ , and you butt in to stop me from –”

“Making a mistake?” Fatin finishes for her. “So maybe you should be thanking me. Come on. You know he just wants to be able to tell people he banged not only a lesbian, but the lesbian that’s supposedly dating Fatin Jadmani.”

Leah’s eyes narrow. “One, I’m not even a lesbian. Two, we aren’t dating, regardless of what Twitter seems to think.”

“Not just Twitter. Literally everyone,” Fatin corrects. “But whatever.”

“Okay, well, I don’t fucking remember you asking me out ever.” (Fatin has nothing to say to that, just looks indignant.) “Now I have to use the bathroom,” Leah grumbles. (She doesn’t really, but it’s the easiest way to get away from Fatin without her arguing.)

“It’s –”

“I can find it.”

She has to wait in a fucking line, but at least it’ll give her, like, ten minutes away from Fatin so she can cool off. (But it’s hard. Every time she thinks about it, thinks about Fatin interrupting just to prevent Leah from dancing with a perfectly nice guy, it makes Leah’s blood boil all over again. And she tries to spot James in the crowd when she passes through, but she thinks he’s long gone. Fatin probably scared him off, or made him think Leah had lied about them not being together.)

“Why is there always a fucking line?” the girl behind Leah complains. “Like go and get out. How hard is it?”

Leah looks over her shoulder when she realizes the girl could only be talking to her, and Leah exhales, shakes her head. “Yeah, right?”

“Hey, wait. Oh my God. I know you,” the girl exclaims, and Leah barely suppresses a sigh (oh Lord). “Leah Rilke. Yeah, your face is, like, _everywhere_.”

“Yeah. Can’t seem to get away from it,” Leah mutters.

“Okay, are you and Fatin really together?” the girl asks. “Because I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it. You seem, like, really sophisticated or whatever, and she seems…I mean, I’m sure she’s great! But you two seem like…an odd match?”

“We aren’t together,” Leah says. (The girl visibly relaxes, lays her hand on Leah’s arm. Leah stares at it for a moment.) “We’re friends,” Leah adds. “So, you know, maybe don’t talk shit about her to me, but…”

“But you’re not banging in the bathroom at school like everyone online seems to think?” the girl says, and Leah busts out laughing.

“Yeah, no. No, not at all.”

“I mean, totally no judgment if that’s what you’re doing,” the girl says, grinning. “Like, I get it. It happens. Been there, done that, right?”

“What, you bang your friends in school bathrooms?”

The girl laughs then fucking winks at Leah, like maybe the answer is _yeah, don’t you?_ And well, they aren’t friends – they’re just two girls in line, waiting for a bathroom – but there’s an interesting glint in this girl’s eyes. (Her eyes are green, not that it fucking matters.) And Leah just laughs, too, because they’re nowhere near the end of this line (and for some reason, she isn’t quite ready to step out of line, even though she doesn’t actually have to pee) and she doesn’t quite want this girl to stop talking.

“Speak of the devil, right?” the girl says, nodding in the direction behind Leah. So Leah twists around, scans the crowd until her eyes find Fatin, on the dancefloor with some guy, but she’s definitely sneaking glances over toward the bathroom line. “God, I know everyone says Fatin’s the hottest of the Unsinkable Seven,” the girl says (and Leah tries not to wince at the mention of her friends – and at how the name always excludes the two girls they were forced to bury), “but honestly, I mean, Fatin’s pretty, but like – you’ve got this sort of mysterious vibe, and it’s totally hot.”

Leah’s jaw hangs open for a second while her brain lags a few seconds behind. (But the girl waits, patiently, for Leah to work it out.) “Okay, this might be, like, way out there,” Leah says once her brain gives her mouth permission to function again. (And Leah angles herself so she can just see Fatin in her peripheral vision, still pretending like she isn’t interested in whatever’s happening between Leah and this girl whose name Leah never bothers to learn.)

“Go for it,” the girl invites. “I like _way out there_.”

So Leah blurts, “Can I kiss you?” and the girl answers by putting her hand against the side of Leah’s neck and pulling them together, so apparently the answer is _yes_. (And now the last person that Leah kissed is no longer Fatin, and that brings her a tiny bit of satisfaction, just like knowing that Fatin is totally seeing them kiss brings her a tiny bit of satisfaction.) It’s not a bad kiss at all. Maybe even, like, top five material. (It’s just too bad the girl that Leah’s kissing isn’t the girl she’s thinking about in the moment. No, she’s much more worried about what Fatin might be thinking, all the way over on the dancefloor, while she watches Leah make out with some random girl in the bathroom line. But Leah’s sure she’ll hear Fatin’s opinion on the matter later tonight.)

Leah is just the right amount of intoxicated to not care when this girl she just met, like, ten minutes ago pushes her tongue into her mouth, when this girl grabs at her waist and then her ass. (And Leah just knows that Fatin sees it all, knows if Fatin was bothered by the idea of Leah dancing with some guy, that this is really gonna eat away at her. And Leah’s slightly too drunk to analyze _why_ exactly she thinks that.)

“Hey!” someone right behind this girl shouts. “You two are next in line! Go, or we’re gonna start cutting!”

And the girl pulls away (but keeps her hand against Leah’s neck) to tell the guy to go fuck himself, that they’re a little busy so please feel free to just go around for the time being. (Leah, admittedly, is a little dazed, and it’s not just the alcohol. She’s not, like, nearly that drunk. No, it’s definitely because she’s making out with a hot girl at a party she didn’t want to be at to begin with, and maybe this makes up for the fact that Fatin effectively cockblocked her earlier with James.) As the guy rolls his eyes and shoves past them, Leah’s eyes return to the girl’s (green, fucking _green_ , like really green) eyes, and the girl smirks in this very particular way that makes Leah think she should probably at least get her name.

But then it doesn’t matter. (Leah, maybe, was sort of hoping it wouldn’t matter, was sort of hoping this was going to happen but would’ve been perfectly fine if it didn’t.) A hand lands on Leah’s shoulder, and she turns around because she’s mildly startled (rather than full-on surprised) which causes the hot girl to let go of her suddenly. (And the girl seems at a loss for words now, unlike just a few moments ago. Maybe it has something to do with seeing Fatin up close, and maybe she’s rethinking what she said about Leah being the hottest member of the Unsinkable Seven.) Leah’s caught off guard (again) by the extra two inches Fatin now has on her (thanks to those _fucking_ heels). And this girl is shorter than Leah, so she’s _really_ shorter than Fatin, and Fatin’s kind of shooting daggers at her with her eyes, and –

“Is that my cue?” Leah jokes (and it falls _so_ flat, and it earns her _the_ scariest look from Fatin, but Leah keeps on grinning even as Fatin’s fingers dig into her shoulder hard enough to bruise, because yeah, it fucking worked).

“Shit,” the girl exhales. “Wait. Are you guys – did you lie to me about you and –?”

“Sorry!” Leah calls over her shoulder as Fatin drags her deeper into the house, toward a staircase. “Hey. Where are we going?” Leah asks. No answer. Not totally unexpected, but still kind of rude. “Fatin?” Leah questions. Fatin leads them all the way to the end of the hall, to the one door that’s wide open, and she shoves Leah inside (not harshly, but if Leah had been actually drunk, she might’ve lost her balance). Fatin follows after her, slams the door (locks it). And for a half a second, Leah thinks Fatin might deck her. (And Leah knows she could do it. She laid Dot out with one swing over a _toothbrush_.)

But Fatin doesn’t look angry anymore, even if Leah can still feel her fingers digging into her shoulder after she’s let go. Leah waits, tries to give Fatin a few moments to say something, to give her some lecture about how she’s making a big mistake even though that would make Fatin the biggest hypocrite on the planet, but Fatin grabs her wrist instead of speaking, so maybe Leah has misread the situation. (Oh, horribly. She has horribly misread it.) And before Leah can ask what the hell Fatin’s problem is, Fatin pulls her forward, spins her around, pins Leah against the door. (And goddamn it, Fatin is _taller_ than her, and it’s fucking infuriating.)

The second after Leah’s back hits (slams against) the door, Fatin’s mouth finds Leah’s. Fatin kisses her insistently, with zero hesitation. (And Fatin’s not drunk; she may not be sober, but this is _not_ how drunk Fatin kissed Leah a few nights back. This is not the sloppy, desperate kiss Fatin had laid on Leah then.) This is calculated. There is definite thought behind this kiss, and as Fatin’s fingers fumble with the few buttons on Leah’s shirt that aren’t already popped open, Leah gets her act together. She grabs Fatin by the waist, tries to pull her closer even though they’re about as close as it gets, even though Fatin’s just undoing the last button holding Leah’s shirt closed.

Leah’s other hand tangles in Fatin’s hair (which she’d spent so much time straightening, and for what? So Leah could hold a fistful of it while they’re making out in some douchebag’s bedroom?) as Leah slips her tongue past Fatin’s lips, unable to wait for Fatin to do it first (and that’s something new for both of them, but not something that’s unwelcome judging by the way Fatin inhales sharply through her nose, the way she grabs a fistful of Leah’s shirt). Leah’s hand slides up from Fatin’s waist, along the shimmery, soft fabric of Fatin’s (damn near almost skintight) dress, toward her chest. Leah’s hand trembles, just slightly, as her body aches for some kind of skin-on-skin contact (but can’t find it). It’ll take some amount of effort to get Fatin out of this dress, though. (And Leah doesn’t have that kind of patience, not while Fatin’s fingertips press against Leah’s bare stomach and _refuse to move_ in any direction.)

And for the first time since Leah’s back hit the door, since Fatin kissed her (for the fifth time, but who’s counting?), Leah considers that maybe she should be asking if this is okay. (Even if Fatin initiated it _again_.) Maybe she shouldn’t assume that this is gonna go somewhere just because Fatin kissed her, or just because Fatin convinced her to go without a bra then unbuttoned her shirt (and now seems almost unsure herself – unsure or unwilling? Maybe Fatin’s having the same internal struggle, wondering if she should pull away to ask for _consent_ , that one concept their health class really drilled into their brains last year).

Well, Leah determines it’d be pretty fucked up if Fatin pinned her to a door then kissed her and unbuttoned her shirt and continued to kiss her but didn’t want to? (Like why would Fatin do this if she didn’t want to? Leah is just tipsy enough to accept that explanation from her brain. Fatin started this; if she doesn’t want to finish it, then obviously she won’t. But that one’s on Fatin.)

When Leah’s patience finally hits, like, less than zero, she grabs Fatin’s hand herself and slides it up under her shirt, presses Fatin’s palm to her breast and _holds_ it there, because goddamn it, if Fatin’s not going to do it on her own, Leah’s going to make it happen. (Besides, she was kind of robbed of this moment by Martha “seeing” Marcus “alive” back when they were high, so. Leah deserves this.) And Leah figures this is the moment of truth, if Fatin is all talk, no action, but the moan Fatin unleashes the second her hand touches Leah’s breast makes Leah think that, yeah, they’re really doing this. (No time to think, or overthink.) Fatin’s other hand slaps against the door somewhere near Leah’s head, maybe to brace herself against something, help keep herself upright. (And Leah can’t blame her. Her legs are threatening to give out, and she grabs Fatin’s shoulders just in case.)

Frankly, though, Leah doesn’t think they’re going to get anywhere against this door. (She’s been fucked against a wall before, and honestly, she’d rather not, so. There’s a bed behind Fatin, might as well use it.) Leah uses her grasp on Fatin’s shoulders to push her back, accidentally breaking them apart.

“What?” Fatin breathes. (Her eyes stay closed.) “Gonna chicken out on me?”

“Fuck you,” Leah hisses.

“Why don’t you already?”

(How’s that for consent?)

Leah pushes Fatin back toward the bed, only pausing for Fatin to pull her heels off, reveling in how Fatin suddenly drops, like, four inches. But before Leah can get Fatin on the bed, Fatin’s arm locks around her waist, and Leah finds herself pinned yet again, but this time, beneath Fatin. Leah doesn’t hesitate to spread her legs (and maybe she should, maybe she should be considering the ramifications of her actions right now), doesn’t hesitate to press their hips flush together as Fatin reclaims her lips, fingers working on undoing the bun she’d put Leah’s hair in earlier.

Leah’s hand seeks out the zipper on Fatin’s dress, but she already knows this is going to have to be a whole _thing_ , and she doesn’t really want to make getting Fatin out of her dress a _thing_ , so even though her fingers do eventually brush against the zipper, she changes course right as Fatin gets her hair out of the bun and decides now’s the time to push Leah’s shirt out of the way. Leah misses her target because Fatin moves unexpectedly, pressing her lips to Leah’s jaw, then neck, then to the center of her chest. And Leah has just enough sense to press her own hand against her mouth before Fatin has to in order to silence the sharp cry she lets out as Fatin’s lips wrap around her nipple, just barely scrapes her teeth against it as her hand slides into Leah’s hair, blunt nails grazing along the side of Leah’s head. (And the fact that Leah can feel Fatin’s lips twist into a smirk kind of makes her want to punch Fatin, but only if she stops.)

The fact that Leah has to at least try to be quiet is pissing her the fuck off, but even now, she knows there’s a possibility she’ll wake up to a Twitter storm, to the Leatin hashtag flooded with tweets about how _#Leatin banged at a party last night so Fatin lied to the fucking world about them not being together_. (And for the first time ever, Leah can visualize it, can see it very clearly in her mind, what’s going to happen between them. She knows Fatin’s only logical trajectory is lower, knows exactly where Fatin’s headed because Fatin’s already struggling to pop the button of Leah’s jeans – and you know what? Leah kinda hopes Fatin struggles to get her jeans down far enough, if not completely off. She’d very much like to see Fatin Jadmani be anything but smooth.) And Leah stops caring about what Twitter might think.

“Fucking –” Fatin hisses (and Leah can feel her breath against her bare stomach) as she tries – and fails – to get the fucking button undone. (And even though Leah can see it, can practically _feel_ Fatin’s tongue on her already, there’s something about Fatin struggling that presents Leah with the perfect opportunity, and she can’t resist the urge to take it.) Leah grabs Fatin’s hands, stopping her, returning Fatin’s gaze to her face (and she doesn’t look uncertain; more like confused), and Leah has no trouble flipping them (so Fatin must not be expecting it), has no trouble pinning Fatin beneath her. (And Fatin looks almost impressed. Maybe even turned on, but if she’s not turned on by now, what are they even doing?)

Leah presses back down, kisses Fatin again (can’t help it). Fatin’s hands tangle in her hair, and she indulges Leah for a few moments, kisses her back, presses her hips up as Leah grinds down. Fatin’s hands slide down Leah’s chest, and she nips at Leah’s lower lip before she breathes, “Fuck, just sit on my face already, will you?”

“Not yet,” Leah says (and _God_ , later she’s really going to regret not seizing that opportunity when it’s in front of her). But she knows her underwear’s soaked through, and whether or not she’s embarrassed about that is going to depend on what she finds (and she can’t _not_ find out; it’s driving her fucking insane). She’s lucky Fatin’s dress is so short. She doesn’t have to push it up much farther before her fingertips brush against Fatin’s (probably fucking pink, lacy) panties. And Leah only catches half of Fatin’s lips on her next attempt to kiss her again, doesn’t really matter as Fatin’s jaw falls open, as Fatin moans into Leah’s mouth as Leah confirms for herself that, yeah, Fatin’s just as wet as she is.

But something shifts between them (and Leah’s going to analyze this moment over and over and _over_ again every fucking night for weeks, _months_ ). It’s like, right as Leah’s hand fully slips beneath Fatin’s panties, right as Fatin arches into her touch, Fatin’s breath hitches, and she goes still. And Leah stops, because she may not always be good at reading Fatin or at reading certain situations, she sure as hell could read this from five fucking miles away. Leah’s pulling away before the word even fully leaves Fatin’s mouth (spoken right against Leah’s lips).

Fatin says, “Wait,” but Leah’s already off her, heart already hammering in her chest (the weight of _this_ , all of this already crashing down on her shoulders). What were they _thinking_? (They weren’t.) And Leah doesn’t have to look at Fatin to know what she’s going to see, to know exactly what the look on Fatin’s face is.

(Leah just doesn’t know why.)

*

“Oh my _God_. Dorothy! When are you going to sit on my face already?” Fatin full-on moans, much to the chagrin of literally everyone else sitting around the fire with her.

“Jesus, Fatin,” Rachel says. “Keep that shit in your pants. What the fuck? You’re getting worse than Toni.”

“I’m sorry,” Fatin says, swallowing her mouth of _fish_ , because _Dot_ found a way to start catching _fish_ for them, forty one days into this whole ordeal (better late than never). “But I feel like we all owe Dot for finding a way to feed us properly, and I’m more than happy to take one for the team.”

“Yeah, not necessary,” Dot says. “Though I appreciate the sentiment? I guess?”

Leah lowers the handful of fish she was intending to eat about five seconds ago and makes a face. “Yeah, I don’t know if I can eat this now,” she says. (She will, in about three minutes, because she’s fucking hungry, and this is real food. But first, she needs to scrub that unwanted mental image from her brain.) Toni and Shelby are fucking leaning in and snickering together, and Martha seems to be having the same issue that Leah’s having, pausing with her next bite lifted halfway to her mouth.

“Get a fucking room, man,” Rachel says. (She has no trouble continuing to eat, though.) “None of us want to hear that shit.”

“Sadly, I’m still straight,” Dot says. “And I have not yet completely given up hope of ever getting out of here, so I’m going to have to shelve your offer for right now, and for the foreseeable future.”

“Your loss,” Fatin says, and Leah chokes on the small piece she dared to attempt to eat. Leah doesn’t miss the way Fatin catches Dot’s eye and smirks, and Dot fucking smirks right back at her, and Leah doesn’t know what to make of that. Is this a joke? A totally inappropriate joke, obviously, and it would fall right in line with Fatin’s sense of humor. But there’s also _maybe_ a small possibility that something’s going on that none of them know about, that Fatin and Dot haven’t bothered to make public. (They all know Toni and Shelby sneak off to fuck. They don’t even bother to hide it anymore. Shit, they made a fucking announcement two nights ago, said if they weren’t back in three hours to send the search party. They didn’t need a search party, thankfully, but that doesn’t negate the point that Dot and Fatin could easily be sneaking off without any of them knowing, even though there’s no fucking reason to hide anything and – Leah should probably calm down.)

“How about this?” Rachel says. “How about we don’t talk about sex at mealtimes, okay? I’d like to be able to keep my food down, thank you very much.”

“I second that,” Martha says.

“Having a hard time handling your dry spell, Fatin?” Toni jeers. “You know, if Shelby wasn’t so jealous, I’d offer you a spot with us – ow! But I guess you and Dot got it covered, huh?”

(Leah wishes Shelby would smack Toni in the arm again, but she doesn’t, settles for glaring at Toni instead. About the jealousy comment, obviously.)

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Fatin replies. “What Dorothy and I do in our spare time is no one’s business.”

“Then stop trying to fucking make it our business, will you?” Rachel snaps. “Jesus Christ.”

Leah eats the rest of her portion of fish quickly, gets to her feet and heads to wash her hands off in the ocean. (And to get away from everyone. More for that reason, honestly.) As she lets the water rush over her hands, she dares to ask herself exactly _why_ the idea of Fatin and Dot, like, fucking in the woods (like Toni and Shelby obviously do) bothers her so much. What they do is none of her business. (And Dot can say she’s straight a hundred times, but Leah sees the way she looks at Fatin, and she’s not so sure.) Again, the question to be asked is: _why does it bother her so much?_ (It’s not the sex talk. It’s not even the sex talk while they’re eating dinner. No, it’s the idea that they’re fucking _at all_. That it might happen. Shit, that it might’ve already happened, might be an ongoing thing that none of them are privy to. And it’s none of Leah’s fucking business, really, but she still –)

“Leah!” Rachel shouts. “Get back over here and save my ass from this shit show!”

Leah trudges back over, eyebrows raised. Fatin and Dot are back at it with the obscene gestures that have become _so_ familiar over the last month or so. Rachel stares up at Leah in disbelief, sends her a look that’s probably supposed to mean _well??? Do something, bitch!_

“Alright,” Leah says, louder than necessary (but she can’t get her voice to lower any further, can’t quite keep the irritation from doing more than just seeping into her voice, and rather, it comes out in full force). “I think that’s more than enough for today. If you’re gonna fuck, at least have the decency to take it away from the rest of us.”

“Thank you,” Rachel says.

“Chill,” Fatin scoffs. “We’re just messing around. And ladies, please, there’s no need to be jealous of me and Dot. There’s plenty of me to go around.”

Before anyone can respond to that comment, Dot says, “Yeah, Leah, no need to get your panties in a twist. If it bothered you so much, you could’ve just said so.”

“We did,” Leah snaps. “Rachel and Martha did, and you two just – you couldn’t let it go, could you?”

“Jesus, okay. We’ll stop,” Fatin says. “Shit.”

The rest of dinner goes quite smoothly, given that it’s basically already over. Leah reclaims her spot in the sand between Fatin and Toni, probably sitting a little closer to Toni than she would otherwise, but no one says anything to her if they notice it. They finish off the fish as a group, and there are no more sex jokes, no more gestures.

“We’re gonna head out,” Toni announces, pulling Shelby to her feet with her. Fatin snorts, but she keeps any comments to herself. (Probably to avoid risking Leah flipping out again.)

“Have fun,” Dot teases. “If you aren’t back within three hours –”

“Send the search party,” Shelby finishes for her, flashing a quick smile.

“What? You two aren’t dying to join them?” Rachel questions, motioning between Fatin and Dot.

“Straight,” Dot reminds as Fatin says, “Not until Dorothy’s ready.”

“Besides,” Dot says. “Four of us can’t disappear all at once.”

“So Shelby and Toni quite literally get screwed, but the rest of us get metaphorically screwed,” Rachel says, and Leah can’t suppress a snort in time. (And Rachel looks rather pleased at making at least Leah laugh.)

“Yep,” Dot agrees. She sprawls out in the sand, exhaling. “Just how it is now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol. Scream at me in the comments or on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. I'm ready for it.


	15. 65

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered being a total dick and not dropping this chapter for a few days, BUT I felt bad and I'm (generally) a nice person, so here it is.

**Shelby, 5:45 a.m.** _Hey, Leah! It’s been awhile. I just wanted to check in, see how you’re doing._

**Martha, 8:23 a.m.** _I told Toni not to say anything but I’m sure she’s going to text you anyway so I’m sorry in advance. Hope you’re doing okay._

**Toni, 8:58 a.m.** _So are the rumors true? Are you fucking Fatin? Because it’d be rude if you and Fatin are fucking and you didn’t tell us yourselves and let us find out from fucking Twitter of all places_

**Rachel, 9:11 a.m.** _So the media’s spreading some vicious rumors about you, huh?_

**Dot, 10:34 a.m.** _Hey, how’s it going?_

**Ian, 11:15 a.m.** _Leah oh my god call me as soon as you get this_

Leah lays in bed, staring at her phone screen. (It’s 1:17 p.m. and she only woke up, like, twenty minutes ago because her mother started to get worried. “I was out late, Mom. I just need to sleep,” Leah grumbles, and while that’s not a lie, it’s not the full truth, either.) Leah takes a deep breath and starts answering texts.

**To Shelby:** _Hey, I’m doing fine. Thanks for checking. Hope you’re good_

**To Martha:** _It’s okay lol thanks Martha hope you’re good too_

**To Toni:** _Real funny, Toni, thanks really needed that laugh today_

**To Rachel:** _Yeah they’re getting pretty vicious I guess but it’s whatever_

**To Dot:** _What did Fatin tell you?_

(She doesn’t expect Dot to answer.) Leah doesn’t bother to text Ian. She rolls over, inhaling deeply, and calls him. He picks up almost immediately.

“Leah,” he says. (He sounds breathless. Like maybe he went for a run, but Leah highly doubts that.)

“Ian,” she says.

“Have you seen it?”

Leah winces. She hasn’t been awake for very long, but of _course_ she’s seen it. It slapped her in the face the second she opened Twitter – and she couldn’t _not_ check Twitter. And it really was like being smacked in the face, because she expected rumors. Sure. She _didn’t_ expect the photograph that surfaces right away. (Leah and Fatin, very obviously stepping out of a bedroom together, with Leah’s shirt still half-unbuttoned and Fatin still pulling her heels on.)

“How could I not?” Leah replies.

“Oh my God, so,” Ian says, “did you – I mean, I know it’s not my business, but…that picture’s kind of incriminating, right? How do you deny it?”

“We didn’t – I mean, it’s – it’s complicated,” Leah stammers.

“Well, no shit! Jesus, Leah. At least you could sort of plausibly deny that there was anything between you and Fatin before this, but now…”

“We didn’t fuck, Ian,” Leah says harshly. (Then realizes she should lower her voice, in case her parents are nearby.) “Look, I’ll – I’ll explain everything later. In person. I gotta go.”

“Tonight,” Ian says. “We’re talking tonight.”

“Fine. Six o’clock. Usual spot.”

She hangs up, immediately dials another number. (She doesn’t expect a response.) It rings once, and then there’s a gruff, “Hello?”

“Dot?”

“You called me, so, yeah,” Dot says. “I was waiting to see how long it’d take you.”

Leah hesitates. “She told you something. She must’ve.”

“Look, that’s between you and her,” Dot says. “I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

“You’re already in the middle,” Leah snaps. “She _told_ you –”

“What?” Dot challenges. “What do you think she told me?”

“What happened,” Leah says quietly. “She told you what happened.”

Dot sighs heavily. “You know there’s no judgment from me, Leah, but I can’t tell you anything Fatin may or may not have told me. If you’re so desperate to know, you’ll have to go talk to her yourself.”

“I can’t do that. Not after – I just can’t.”

“Come _on_ ,” Dot scoffs. “You two just need to sit down and talk it out.”

“Yeah, no. We don’t do that.”

“Well, what do you think needs to happen?” Dot questions. “You’re just gonna do nothing and hope for the best?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Or you could just tell me what she said, and then I’ll go –”

“I’m not selling her out,” Dot says flatly. “She knew you’d call me, though.”

“Does she want me to talk to her?” Leah asks. “Did she tell you anything about –?”

“Leah. Take it up with Fatin. Come on. We all almost died on an island because of Gretchen’s ego. Two of us _did_ die. I think you can handle one conversation.”

Leah ends the conversation there, mutters something about having to go. She starts pacing, mind flashing back to last night. (She wishes it wouldn’t.) That drive home – well, really, the drive to Fatin’s house – was fucking unbearable. (Silent. Totally silent. Neither of them said a word, not on their way out of the house, not on the ride to Fatin’s, not after.) Leah can’t keep thinking about it, so she checks her texts again.

**Shelby, 1:22 p.m.** _Well if you ever need anything, you know I’m here._

**Martha, 1:31 p.m.** _I’m okay. Just don’t let Toni harass you too much_

**Toni, 1:35 p.m.** _Hey no shame man Fatin’s hot as hell_

**Rachel, 1:37 p.m.** _Well if you need anything, you’ve got the Texans, man. Jk you could call me if you wanted_

Leah stares at her contacts list, alternating between two options. (Shelby? Rachel. No, Shelby. Rachel? Shelby. Okay, yeah, Shelby.) Leah calls Shelby, swallowing hard. She hasn’t spoken to Shelby, like, over the phone or in person in, like a month? (They text sometimes. They all do. They have the Unsinkable Seven Snapchat group chat that none of them really use, but it’s there. They like and comment on each other’s Instagram or Facebook posts. Retweet tweets. They don’t really _talk_ though.)

“Hello?” Shelby says. “Leah?”

“Shelby,” Leah says faintly. “Um, hey?”

“Are you okay?” Shelby asks gently. “I know what they’re saying about…you know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean – it’s nothing new, but…”

“This time is different.”

“Yeah. But it’s not what everyone thinks!”

“Usually isn’t,” Shelby agrees. “Have you talked to her?”

Leah blinks. “Who?”

“Fatin,” Shelby says. “Have you talked to her?”

“Oh, um…no. I just got off the phone with Dot.”

Shelby hums. “And she wouldn’t tell you what Fatin said.”

“Of course not,” Leah grumbles. “You know how those two are.”

“Sure do. I’m guessing that’s why you’re calling me?”

Leah hesitates. “No, no, I’m not – I mean, I don’t really know why I called, actually. Guess I just needed to hear a friendly voice.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Shelby asks.

Leah inhales sharply, drops down on the edge of her bed. “I don’t know. But don’t listen to whatever Toni says.”

Shelby laughs softly, and it manages to draw out a small smile from Leah. “How about _you_ don’t listen to whatever Toni says,” Shelby replies. “She means well. She just doesn’t always…put it into words the right way.”

“She did text me this morning,” Leah says. “I guess what she said doesn’t matter as much as the fact that she bothered to text at all.”

“That’s right.”

“How are you two, by the way?” Leah asks. “I’m sorry, I know I don’t do the whole catching up thing much.”

Shelby indulges Leah a little, tells her how she FaceTimes Toni almost every day, how they’re texting more often than not, or sharing memes, and they’re even _writing letters_. Like, by hand.

“What the fuck?” Leah says. “That’s so cute.”

Shelby laughs. “I know! I didn’t think she’d go for it, but we’ve already swapped over twenty letters. I swear, I get one every few days.”

“So Toni’s a secret romantic, huh?”

“Don’t tell her I told you that.”

Leah chuckles, but it dies in her throat as her mind returns to Fatin. (Well, the few minutes of distraction were nice while they lasted.) “Thanks for just, um, answering the phone,” Leah says. “I gotta go, but I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, of course,” Shelby says softly. “Good luck.”

Yeah. She’s gonna fucking need it.

Leah answers her texts one last time before she steels herself to face her parents.

**To Martha:** _Toni’s harmless. Tell her I said I miss her_

**To Toni:** _Oh, fuck you lol_

**To Rachel:** _I’m gonna make you regret making that offer_

Leah heads downstairs, shuffles into the living room where her mom’s watching TV and her dad’s reading a physical newspaper. They both look up as she walks in, and her mom jumps to her feet, hugs her without a word. Leah startles, manages to hug her mother back. Her dad stands, too, clears his throat, and just claps her on the shoulder when her mom lets go.

“You okay?” her dad asks.

“Yeah,” Leah answers (lies). “I, um, I need to go out tonight. I’m sorry, I know I was just out yesterday, but –”

“No, go ahead,” her mom says quickly. “Fatin?”

“No. No, actually it’s Ian. We’re probably just gonna grab dinner or something.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” her mom says. (Leah can tell her mom is dying to ask, but maybe she’s holding off because her dad’s right here? Or maybe she doesn’t feel like Leah will give her an answer – she won’t – and she doesn’t want to pry?) “Have fun. Let us know if you’re gonna be late.”

“Shouldn’t be too late.”

So at six, Leah shows up at their usual spot. (The school parking lot. Nothing like sitting on the trunk of Ian’s car over the weekend when the school’s completely empty.) Ian had already picked up dinner, throws Leah’s sandwich into her chest as she walks closer. (She catches it. Always does.) It was her turn to pay, but Ian took pity on her. Leah hoists herself up next to him, and they finish eating before either of them speaks.

“So what really happened?” Ian asks. “Twitter can’t seem to come to a consensus. Apart from _#Leatin banged at a party_ , so.”

“We didn’t bang,” Leah mutters. “Or we almost did? Sort of – it’s – I don’t know.”

Ian’s eyebrows raise. “You don’t know if you banged?”

Leah pauses with her jaw hanging open as she struggles to find the words. “I mean…I don’t know if it counts?” (So she recaps the events of the night for Ian, starting with when they first showed up at the party, when Fatin cockblocked her _twice_ , and Leah speaks as quickly as she can, as if getting the words out faster will make them less true. And Ian just listens, nodding, eyebrows furrowing in certain places.)

“You need to talk to her,” Ian says when Leah finishes. “Because yeah, you’re right. I don’t know if that counts as banging either.”

“It’s not funny,” Leah mumbles, shoving at his arm. He grins, and she can’t help but crack a smile and roll her eyes.

“It’s not funny at all,” Ian agrees. “It’s kind of fucked up. And what’s worse is that Twitter is almost right for once.”

“It’d probably just be easier if they _were_ right.”

“Well…you wanted to – I’m going to say sleep with her, because bang doesn’t feel like the right word anymore. Right?”

Leah thinks (long and hard, and Ian lets her take her time). “I mean, I was following through with it, right?” she finally says. “So I must’ve wanted to.”

“Okay, yeah,” Ian says. “So why do you look confused?”

“I don’t – I didn’t just want to fuck anyone,” Leah says. She inhales sharply, eyes widening. “Oh, _fuck_.”

“What?”

“I made out with that girl, right? But I wouldn’t have fucked her. I could’ve gotten, like, HPV or some shit. I don’t know. I didn’t know her. I didn’t want to fuck her. Oh my _God_. I wanted to fuck _Fatin_.”

Now Ian looks confused. “Yeah?”

Leah slaps her hands against the trunk. “I like _Fatin Jadmani_. Fatin Jadmani. Fucking _Fatin_.”

“I mean, it could be worse,” Ian says. “She could be twenty years older than you? Too soon?”

Leah just shoves at his shoulder, shoots him a glare. “Stop being a dickhead.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

“What do I do?” Leah groans, hiding her face in her hands. “I fucked it up already, and I didn’t even –”

“Hey, slow down,” Ian interjects. “Have you even spoken to her since last night?”

“Well, no.”

“So? Go,” he encourages. “Just tell her how you feel.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not?” he demands.

Leah hesitates. “There’s no way she feels the same way.”

“You told me she kissed you.”

“Okay, and? That’s just, like, what’s she’s like. That’s not an indication that it _means_ anything.”

“Are you hearing yourself?”

“Are you hearing me?” Leah retorts. “We’re talking about Fatin. She doesn’t _do_ relationships or feelings or anything.”

“Then why’d she back out?”

“What?” Leah says dumbly.

“Why didn’t she fuck you last night?” Ian rephrases.

“I – don’t know.”

Ian hums. “Might be something to ask her.” He claps her on the back. “Good luck. Let me know how it goes.”

*

“Fatin! _Please_ find a way to get off!” Rachel complains. “You’re driving us all insane.”

“I already told you, I _can’t_ ,” Fatin retorts. “Do you know how many fucking days it’s been since I’ve had an orgasm?”

“Yes!” everyone exclaims. (They’ve been on the island for sixty five days. Fatin’s last orgasm was exactly sixty seven days ago, thank you very much. She won’t let them fucking forget it.)

“You know, I would offer to take one for the team,” Dot pipes up.

“Honestly? Maybe you should,” Rachel says.

“But I really don’t think I could do it,” Dot admits. “That’s just not a skill in my toolbox, unfortunately.”

“Ugh, _toolbox_? How are you _not_ a lesbian?” Fatin whines.

“Metaphorical toolbox,” Dot corrects. She winks at Fatin. “But I am pretty handy, I guess.”

“Lesbian,” Fatin coughs, and Dot throws a handful of sand at her.

“Toni,” Rachel says suddenly. “You should take one for the team, then.”

“Um,” Shelby says. She clears her throat. “Sadly, Toni’s going to have to reject that very generous offer.”

“Yeah, man, no offense,” Toni tells Fatin.

Fatin just rolls her eyes. “I’m literally dying, and you won’t lend me a hand? Like literally, a hand?”

“No,” Shelby answers for Toni again.

“What about you, Miss Texas?”

“No.”

“God, you must really be getting desperate,” Rachel snorts. “Ask Rilke.”

Leah looks up from the (Nora’s) journal, pausing in the middle of twirling the pen around her fingers so it drops to the sand. “What?” Leah says. “What did I miss?”

“Fatin needs a hand,” Rachel snickers.

“With what?”

“Her vagina,” Martha answers, and everyone except Leah dies laughing on the spot. (Leah’s face flushes, and she squints against the sunlight, as if maybe that’ll convince everyone it’s the sun’s fault instead.)

“Why don’t you help her out, then, Rachel?” Leah snaps. “Since you think it’s so funny to volunteer me.”

“Oh, no, I’m good,” Rachel replies. “I’m straighter than Dot, and besides.” She holds up her arm, waves it around. “I’m already down a hand. I’m not sacrificing my only remaining hand to Fatin’s pussy.”

“You know what?” Fatin says. “I find that pretty offensive, actually.”

“Learn to get yourself off then,” Rachel says. “It’s really not that hard.”

“Can I have a demonstration?” Fatin asks.

“Jesus, Fatin!” Dot laughs. She rolls onto her side, cheek pressing into the sand as she struggles to catch her breath.

“You don’t know when to quit,” Toni says, nodding. “I respect that.”

“Fuck you,” Fatin says.

“We already established we can’t. I have a girlfriend,” Toni replies. (And Toni and Fatin exchange a grin, though Fatin’s slides first.)

“I need to be fucking _touched_!” Fatin shouts at the sky. Rachel takes that as her cue to go find something productive to do. Martha looks at Marcus (maybe suspiciously? Leah can’t tell). Dot starts laughing uncontrollably again, slaps her hand against Leah’s knee, which jostles the pen and causes Leah to etch a black line across the page. Toni and Shelby look at each other, and Fatin complains, “God, all you’re doing is _staring_ at each other, but I want you to get a room! It’s not fair you two can get some, and the rest of us are shit out of luck.”

“Maybe you just need to step your game up, Fatin,” Toni teases. “I found love on a deserted island. Why can’t you?”

“It’s, like, day sixty five,” Fatin says. “I’m pretty sure if I was going to get any, it would’ve happened by now.”

“Touché,” Toni says. “But there’s always time. Maybe someone will get desperate enough to stoop to that level.”

“Thanks a lot, Shalifoe. Really fucking appreciate it,” Fatin scoffs.

“Anytime.”

Fatin reaches out, palm slapping against Leah’s bare thigh. Leah jumps, accidentally draws _another_ black line across the page. “Jesus,” Leah says. She looks down at the hand resting on her thigh before using the end of the pen to lift it and let it drop to the sand. “Not the way to get some, Fatin.”

“Someone has to help me out,” Fatin says.

Leah shrugs. “That’s on you. Just do what the rest of us do.”

“I can’t do it with my hands!”

“Then get Martha’s suitcase,” Dot laughs (and she laughs even harder at the scandalized look that crosses Martha’s face). “Or, you know, Marcus. Or is his dick not big enough for you?”

“No!” Martha shouts, dragging Marcus closer. “I won’t let you defile him like that.”

“Martha, honey, Marcus is _so_ not my type,” Fatin replies. “So come on, Leah. Leah. _Leah_. Just, like, a hand. It shouldn’t even take long, honestly, I’m so tightly wound –”

“Oh my God,” Leah interrupts. “No. Do _not_ even ask me that.”

(Toni’s laughing too hard to hear Leah’s response, and Shelby’s just got this _look_ on her face, like she knows something that the rest of them don’t, and Martha mostly looks confused.)

“Fatin,” Dot groans. “Give it a _rest_ , already.”

“Then give me a hand?” Fatin asks.

“No. Go in the woods and figure it out yourself. I promise, we’ll leave you alone.”

Fatin pouts. “What fun is doing it alone?”

“She’s got a point,” Toni says before immediately dissolving into laughter again. She falls into Shelby, and Shelby just drapes her arm around Toni’s shoulders, waits for her to laugh herself out.

“And God, stop acting like a cute fucking couple in front of us,” Fatin whines. “It’s making me sick. And horny.”

“Fatin!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all. You've been absolutely delightful so far. I don't deserve you lol. Leave me your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or send me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	16. 50

**8:19 p.m.** _I’m in front of your house and I’m not going away until you come out here_

Leah sends the text, and she waits. She watches the Jadmani’s front door from her car, parked along the curb. Her eyes flick between the door and her phone occasionally, to see if there’s any indication that Fatin has acknowledged her.

**8:23 p.m.** _I mean it, if you don’t come out here, I’m gonna come knock_

Send. Wait. Five minutes goes by. Right as Leah’s (furiously) typing up _I swear on Buster’s life if you don’t get your ass out here I’m going to_ (and that’s as far as she gets), the front door opens, and Fatin staggers out. Leah hurries out of her car, slamming the door and jogging to meet Fatin halfway up the driveway. (Fatin’s barefoot, and she can still barely keep her balance.)

“Leah,” Fatin slurs. Her hands grasp onto Leah’s shoulders to prevent herself from swaying, and Leah’s eyes widen. She grabs onto Fatin’s arms in a futile attempt to steady her. “Why are – what are – you’re here.”

“Fatin, I – we need to talk, but not while you’re fucking wasted,” Leah says.

“I don’t wanna talk,” Fatin mumbles. (She leans forward, Leah leans back, but Fatin’s just unsteady. She’s not trying to make a move or anything.)

“Do your parents know that you’re –?”

“Fucked up? Yeah. They don’t care, as long as I don’t drive and kill someone or whatever.” Fatin shakes her head; her eyes glaze over. “They don’t care.”

“Let’s sit down,” Leah suggests. She’s about to lead Fatin to her car, but Fatin takes that to mean sit _now_ , and she starts lowering her ass to the pavement. Since she’s got a death grip on Leah’s shoulders, Leah has no choice but to follow her down. Leah studies Fatin warily as Fatin draws her knees to her chest. (Fatin normally doesn’t look like this, especially not on a Saturday when she’d usually be out. She’s got a curious T-shirt on, just slightly baggy on Fatin’s slim frame, branded with the words _EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS_ across the chest. It’s obviously a men’s T-shirt, but Leah would bet her _life_ it was a gift from Dot. Fatin’s legs are mostly bare; her shorts are _short_. Her ears lack all of their usual piercings. Her face is completely bare. There’s a gold chain around her neck, though. The fucking _zero fucks_ necklace. Her rings are on her fingers, and she fiddles with one of them absently now. And the fucking watch is strapped to her wrist.)

“So?” Fatin says. “What do you want?”

“I was hoping you’d be sober,” Leah admits.

“Can’t.”

“You can’t? You can’t stay sober?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Why not?”

“They don’t care,” Fatin whispers.

Leah’s eyebrows pull together. Fatin won’t look at her, stares off into the distance instead. Her lower lip trembles. (Leah is _here_ , sitting right next to Fatin, and Fatin can’t – or won’t – think about her, about what happened between them. And maybe that’s why she’s so fucking gone. Maybe she’s so drunk because she doesn’t want to deal with it. Or maybe she really just couldn’t give two shits about what happened, about Leah, and she’s only worried about her family. Which, well, Leah can’t totally blame Fatin for that, but if it’s true, that’ll fucking sting.)

“Fatin?” Leah says quietly. She dares to reach over, lays her hand on Fatin’s shoulder. Fatin flinches slightly, and Leah debates pulling her hand away. (She doesn’t. It gets Fatin to finally look at her.) Fatin raises her hand, places her palm against the side of Leah’s face, her jaw. Leah’s lips part, and she winces slightly as the cool metal of the watch touches her skin. Fatin’s eyes are oddly clear, but only just for a moment, before she takes her hand back, swipes quickly at her cheeks, then returns to hugging her legs. “Please say something,” Leah blurts.

“You should go home, Leah.”

(Not what she meant.)

“No.”

“Then you’re just gonna be disappointed again.”

Leah inhales sharply (but her brain stalls). “I’m not –”

“Save it.” Fatin sniffs once, shoves herself to her feet. (She’s still unsteady, but she keeps her balance as Leah scrambles to get up and brace herself if Fatin falls.) “Go home,” Fatin repeats.

“Fatin!”

Fatin doesn’t stop, continues walking up the driveway with her arms wrapped around herself like she’s cold, even though it’s not even close to being cold. (In fact, Leah’s sweating, but that might have nothing to do with the weather.) Leah doesn’t head back to her car until the front door slams shut. She gets behind the wheel, resists the urge to take her anger out on her steering wheel. (She sits there for a few minutes, tries to breathe deeply and evenly, trying to let go of her anger before she drives home.) She pulls out her phone, shoots off a text.

**8:54 p.m.** _How am I supposed to talk to her if she’s fucking wasted?_

Leah gives Dot three minutes to respond before driving off. There’s a text waiting for her when she gets home.

**Dot, 8:59 p.m.** _Just give her some time_

(Now Leah resists the urge to take her anger out on her phone. Won’t do her any good to smash it into the cement.)

They had nothing _but_ time on the island, but here? Back in fucking regular society? There’s no time. (Leah can blow off school and ruin her GPA and her future, but eventually, she’ll have to do _something_. Continue school or get a job, especially if the trial doesn’t go their way. There isn’t enough time anymore. She can’t just sit and wait a few days for Fatin to come around like she could on the island.)

**9:04 p.m.** _That’s terrible advice_

Dot sends the fucking shrugging emoji in response, and Leah gives up. She greets her parents on her way in, bends over to pet Buster, answers a few questions about how Ian’s doing. (“Fine. Yeah, we just ate dinner and talked.”) Leah heads to her room, pulls her phone out again.

**9:12 p.m.** _Seriously Fatin we need to talk when you’re SOBER_

(She doesn’t get a response before she finally falls asleep past midnight. She doesn’t expect one.)

*

The fiftieth day feels like any other. The sun shines brightly (it’s too bright, makes the island look almost beautiful, and this day is anything but beautiful). There’s a light breeze. The ocean is calm. But the mood among the group is somber from the moment Leah wakes up. Toni and Shelby aren’t sleeping, but Shelby’s head rests on Toni’s chest, Toni’s arms wrapped around her. Martha’s not asleep, either, but her arm is still flung around Marcus’s chest. Fatin and Dot sit side-by-side, shoulders pressed together, but they both stare at the fire. Rachel examines the stump at the end of her arm, not that it’s changed much in the last few weeks. Leah flips to the next page of the (Nora’s) journal and at the top writes _Day 50_.

“We really might not get out of here,” Rachel says, breaking the silence for the first time this morning (even though they’ve all been up for at least an hour). “Like, ever. We might spent the rest of our lives here.”

“And with that sentiment, happy fiftieth day on the island, everyone,” Dot says sarcastically.

“You know what I miss the most?” Fatin asks.

“Sex,” everyone answers monotonously.

A smile flickers on Fatin’s face, fades quickly. “Actually, I miss my brothers.”

(No one apologizes to her, but they all flinch.)

“Yeah, you know what I miss the most?” Rachel says. “My fucking sister.”

(Again, they collectively flinch.)

“I miss my fucking toothbrush,” Toni says, lifting her head to shoot a glare Fatin’s way. (It doesn’t even get a smile out of Fatin. She doesn’t make a snappy comment. Doesn’t even react.) “And pizza. And basketball,” Toni answers.

“I miss my mom,” Martha sighs.

“Me too,” Leah agrees. “And my dog.”

Shelby and Dot stay quiet. No one encourages them to speak up, to join in the group’s sudden sharing circle. (They all miss the obvious things. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Running water. Reliable sources of food. They don’t all have family to miss.)

“What would y’all say to playing a little game?” Shelby asks. “To commemorate our fiftieth day here.”

“What game?” Leah asks flatly.

“We could have an Uno tournament,” Shelby suggests.

“Ooh, yes!” Martha exclaims. She rushes to get the game. “Since they’re my cards, I get to play first _and_ choose an opponent,” Martha says. “So, Toni. Get up.”

The tournament kills a few hours, keeps their minds safely away from the idea that they’re never going to be rescued (that they’re going to die out here, probably sooner rather than later). Martha knocks Toni out, then Shelby knocks Martha out, then Dot knocks Shelby out, then Fatin knocks Dot out, and Fatin announces, “Rilke! You’re up. C’mon. I’m two people away from being crowned Uno champion.”

Leah doesn’t try to beat Fatin. It just happens, and she ends up facing Rachel. The rest of the girls (and Marcus) gather around for the final showdown. Rachel takes it seriously, staring hard at her cards, then at Leah, then back at her cards.

“Jesus, Rachel, just play a card,” Dot complains. And it goes like that until Leah throws her last card down and wins the tournament.

“Fuck you, man,” Rachel whines, throwing her last few cards to the sand. Leah sticks her tongue out at Rachel, and Rachel rolls her eyes and shakes her head (tries not to smile, mostly fails).

They eat dinner and turn in extra early, as if waking up tomorrow in a hellhole will be any easier without an arbitrary milestone. They sleep closer together as a group than they normally do, forming a tight circle. (It helps, actually. The temperature drops lower than it has recently, and it’s nice to be surrounded by warm bodies.) Leah lies squished between Rachel and Fatin, arms pressed together.

“I know you’re awake, Rilke,” Rachel grunts.

“So?” Leah says.

“Do you think we’re gonna die here?” Rachel asks quietly. (So quietly, Leah almost thinks she imagined that Rachel spoke at all. At least, until Rachel elbows her in the ribs.)

“I – I’m not sure,” Leah admits. “We could. Obviously. We haven’t yet.”

“It doesn’t look like rescue is ever coming.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Leah agrees.

“So what the fuck are we even doing now, man?” Rachel asks. “We’re just waiting to die out here. Just pushing it off one more day, huh?”

“We’re doing what we can,” Leah replies. “I suppose there’s always a chance someone will find us by accident, right?”

“That could take years, if it ever happened.”

Leah hesitates. “You know, throwing yourself into the ocean to try to escape is a really terrible idea, right?”

Rachel snorts, clamps her hand over her mouth to stop herself from waking the rest of the group. “Yeah, man, we all fucking know that, thanks to your demonstration.”

(That was a month ago. It feels like it was a whole fucking lifetime ago.)

“It’s not so bad out here all the time, right?” Leah says uneasily. “I mean, we could be stranded with worse people?”

“Maybe,” Rachel grunts.

“We could be stranded alone?”

“I’d off myself right away,” Rachel dismisses. “Not fucking worth it.”

(And, well, she’s got a point there.)

“I want a rematch tomorrow,” Rachel says. “On that fucking Uno game. I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

(“Can you two shut up?” Fatin grumbles. “I’m trying to sleep.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it's not clear yet that I love you all, then let me say it now: I love you all. Thank you so much. Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or you can also find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	17. 88

**Fatin, 11:23 a.m.** _okay_

Okay? Well, at least she agreed to talk when she’s sober. (But all she says is _okay_. Like, Leah gets that she’s probably hungover, but seriously.)

**11:28 a.m.** _When?_

It’s Sunday, and even if Fatin is ridiculously hungover, Leah can’t take just waiting anymore. (This isn’t the island. Leah can’t just corner Fatin and force her to do anything.)

**Fatin, 11:39 a.m.** _later i’m fucking hungover_

(Well, what else could Leah expect? At least Fatin texted her back.)

Later does not end up being any time on Sunday. (No, Leah’s pretty sure Fatin sleeps through most of Sunday.) Leah gets to school extra early Monday morning to sit with Ian at one of the picnic tables with a good view of the parking lot.

“So your plan is to ambush her at school?” Ian questions. “You don’t think that’s going to majorly backfire?”

(It probably will.)

“She can’t avoid me forever,” Leah mutters. “And if it goes badly…well, I guess then Twitter will know that _Leatin_ broke up, and I won’t have to deal with seeing any of that shit anymore.”

“Nah, they’ll still push the Leatin agenda,” Ian laughs. “They won’t let go that quickly.”

“Oh, whatever.”

The yellow Audi whips into the parking lot, screeches to a halt in its usual spot, and Leah’s on her feet.

“Hey, you’re just gonna attack her in the parking lot?” Ian calls.

“I’m not _attacking_ anyone,” Leah replies over her shoulder. “We’re going to talk.”

And Fatin Jadmani is back. There’s not a single hint of the Fatin that Leah saw on Saturday night. (Not. At. All.) Short (high-waisted) skirt. Crop top. Her hair’s straight (but Fatin sure is not – too soon?), her hoops are back (as are her other piercings), and she’s wearing _fucking heels_ to school. (And that fucking watch. Sunlight glints off its face as Fatin flips her hair over her shoulder.)

“Don’t think you’re gonna walk right past me,” Leah says once Fatin’s within earshot.

“I’m not that rude, Leah,” Fatin replies. “But can this wait? I kinda have a thing –”

“If it waits, it’s never going to happen,” Leah retorts. “Right?”

“Do you have something to say?” Fatin asks. She stops walking, glances around. (No one’s close enough to hear them if they speak quietly enough. A big blowout, though, will not go unnoticed, and will likely be filmed for all of Twitter to witness.) Leah straightens her back out, hates ( _despises_ ) being shorter than Fatin. (And Fatin smirks, like maybe she knows this.) “Leah?”

“What the fuck was that?” Leah finally asks.

Fatin’s eyebrows raise. “Was what? You’ll have to be a _little_ more specific than that.”

“You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about,” Leah says through her teeth. (Fatin’s expression, her eyes, are impossible to read. There’s just nothing there. She doesn’t even react to the way Leah’s temper flares. She’s too calm.)

“Okay, then what about it?” (And to that, Leah doesn’t know what to say.) After a long moment, Fatin presses her lips together, nods. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, we have class soon, so.”

Leah catches Fatin’s wrist in her hand as she attempts to walk away, and Fatin whips back around. “Walk away now, and that’s it,” Leah says. (And damn it, she has to fight so hard to keep her eyes from watering. Her voice still breaks, though, and Fatin’s façade wavers, just a little, just enough for Leah to pick up on.) Fatin (gently) shakes her wrist free. Her jaw clenches, but in a way that sort of makes it look like she’s in pain.

“We have to go,” Fatin says.

“What’s it gonna take?” Leah calls as Fatin starts to head for the building. She holds her arms out, can’t help but to look bewildered. (Fatin turns back, looks torn between rushing into the school or storming back to shut Leah the fuck up.) “What do I have to do to get you to say something?” Leah questions. (And there are eyes on them now. Maybe cameras, too. Leah doesn’t know. Doesn’t really care.)

“Leah,” Fatin warns.

“Seriously, what do I – whatever you want me to do, I’ll fucking do it, okay? So just tell me.”

Fatin closes some of the distance between them, drops her voice. “Now’s not the time,” she says.

“It’ll never be a good time,” Leah whispers, swallows hard. She’s just lucky the tears stay contained to her eyes, don’t spill over. “Not now, not when we’re not trapped on a fucking island together, forced to rely on each other just to fucking stay alive. No, now we’re back to never having time, so you’ll find a way to put talking to me off.”

“Leah –”

“Was it just a game?” Leah asks. “Hmm? Are you just trying to fuck with my head?”

“Why would I do that?” Fatin hisses, leaning in close. “After I spent three months trying to make sure you didn’t lose your fucking mind? Why would I intentionally try to fuck you up?” Fatin pauses, shakes her head. “You’re just reading too far into shit, Leah.”

“Yeah? Is that what I’m doing?” Leah questions. “I don’t recall being the one to start shit between us on Friday –”

“Don’t _even_ go there.”

“It’s not like the whole world doesn’t already fucking know,” Leah says. “I don’t know, maybe everyone except me knows what the fuck is going on between us. Well, actually, you don’t seem to know either, do you? You just kiss me and explain it away, except this time I guess you haven’t found a way to do that yet, have you? And that’s why you have nothing to say?” When Fatin stays silent (but she’s shaking, and Leah isn’t sure if it’s out of anger, if she’s about to get decked by Fatin or not), Leah nods. “Right. That’s what I thought. Okay.”

And Leah walks away first.

*

_Day 88_

Leah scrawls it on the top of the page, exhales heavily, tosses the journal into the suitcase with the rest of their shit. The last fifteen days or so, Leah hasn’t really kept track of much apart from the fact that another day has gone by. But day eighty eight is the most important day on the island. (They don’t know that when they wake up, preparing to face another day in hell.) It’s mid-afternoon when it happens, though. When rescue arrives. When they know without a doubt they’re getting off this fucking island and facing an eventual return to civilization.

(They all scream. Maybe it’s not dignified, but once it’s clear they’re really going to be whisked off this island, no one can help it. Toni and Shelby kiss, clutch at each other like they’ve just gotten engaged or something. Martha hoists Marcus up over her head, jumping up and down. Rachel launches herself into Leah’s arms, nearly knocking Leah off her feet. And Fatin grabs Dot by the face and kisses her. Quickly, before she crushes Dot in a hug, leaving Dot with a dazed look on her face.)

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rachel breathes against Leah’s shoulder. “We’re actually fucking getting out of here.” She pulls back, grabs onto Leah’s shoulder, and shakes her. “We’re leaving!” Rachel shouts. She grabs Leah by the face, roughly (and for one slightly terrifying moment, Leah thinks Rachel’s going to kiss her, like, for real) then plants one on Leah’s cheek. “Thank the fucking Lord!” Rachel yells at the sky. She rushes off to join Martha (and Marcus), leaving Leah slightly stunned (but still not as stunned as Dot, who doesn’t seem to know where she is anymore).

“Ugh, I _finally_ get to have an orgasm again!” Fatin announces, and even that can’t ruin their spirits.

(Being trapped in a bunker by the “authorities” will do that just fine on its own.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was kinda short. (And so was the last one, I know.) 18 will be longer. A lot longer, actually. (Over 6k.) So you have that to look forward to. Anyway, as always, thank you all so much. Leave me your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Otherwise find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. See you all for tomorrow's chapter.


	18. 9

It happens so gradually that eventually, Leah stops noticing the way that Fatin slips right out of her life. Leah’s attention returns to school, turns to salvaging her shit GPA. Her attention starts to become consumed by the pending trial of Gretchen Klein, which inches closer and closer as the school year moves forward. She spends most her free time with Ian or with her parents. (They’ve started this thing where they go see a movie once a month as a family, grab dinner afterwards.) And as senior year winds down, pushes toward graduation, Leah only occasionally thinks about Fatin. (That might be mostly owed to her therapist, who has talked her down _many_ times, has helped her deal with her shit in a healthier way than obsessing over it until it rips her apart.)

(Okay, but it’s hard not to vaguely think about Fatin at times. Whenever anything about the Unsinkable Seven comes up online or on TV. And with the trial about to start, the media’s going crazy about them all again. There are talks of documentaries, books, massive settlements from Gretchen and the people who funded her “research.” So yeah, maybe whenever Rachel texts Leah, Leah’s mind still flashes to the island, flashes to Fatin and everything that went down. Or didn’t go down. Whatever. But it’s not like it consumes her life after the first three months.)

Avoiding Fatin at school for the remainder of the year is easy enough. Leah knows her schedule, knows which halls she’s in and when, knows where she has lunch with her friends. (She sees Fatin walk into the building one time with her cello case on her back, and Leah can’t help but wonder if she’s shooting for Juilliard again. Or maybe it’s a onetime thing. Leah will never know.) Leah stops checking Instagram, knowing she’ll see multiple posts from Fatin every weekend (and it’s just not worth it). The only reason she doesn’t totally deactivate her Twitter account is because Ian DMs her particularly juicy rumors, starting right after the _#Leatin broke up_ rumor was sent around. (No one’s onto Toni and Shelby yet. Why would they be? They’re still on opposing sides of the country.)

It takes three weeks after Leah confronts Fatin at school before Dot reaches out to her. (Leah runs under the assumption that Fatin has told Dot everything, however her version of events may go.) The text comes out of nowhere, but Leah knows exactly what it means.

_I take it you didn’t fix things then?_

And Leah just sends back _I tried. It’s on her now_. (And that’s the end of that. Leah knows Dot won’t push her, has no idea if Dot will push Fatin. And for once, Leah doesn’t stress over something she can’t know.) Needless to say, Leah doesn’t talk to Dot much. (But she talks to Shelby and Rachel. Sometimes Martha, and by extension, Toni.) Shelby only tries to interfere in to whole “Fatin situation” once (and Leah has a feeling she would’ve tried harder if Toni hadn’t talked her down). Rachel doesn’t ask too many questions, just accepts the details Leah eventually starts handing over. (Leah doesn’t remember when they sort of became actual friends. She supposes it’s just another thing that happens gradually, though this time through the screen of her phone. She has quite a bit more in common with Rachel than she would’ve ever thought. Especially when it comes to their parents obsessing over how they’re doing.)

Before Leah knows it, she graduates from high school. The trial comes and goes over the summer, and Leah (and the rest of the Unsinkable Seven) end up with enough money for them all to be set for _life_ (if they budget correctly, but Dot’s already on that). Gretchen doesn’t just go down for running a highly illegal (not to mention super immoral) “experiment,” but the jury also finds her personally responsible for both the deaths of Linh Bach and Nora Reid, so Gretchen will never see the outside of a prison cell again (life without parole, baby).

It’s kind of a bittersweet moment for Leah, though, sitting in that courtroom, surrounded by her friends (and family, and the media) as they hear the verdict. Shelby cries (and Toni does, too, just a little, but she’s never going to admit it and the rest of the Unsinkable Seven do her a favor and never bring it up again). Rachel looks smug, leans over toward Leah to crack a joke about how she’s flipping Gretchen off but no one will ever know because, you know, and she holds up her arm and Leah chokes.

(Court is the first time Leah’s in a room with Fatin since, well, Leah isn’t really sure. Maybe since they last talked outside of the school. And it’s easy for Leah to look at Rachel, or Shelby, or Toni, or Martha, or Dot instead of at Fatin every time they gather here.)

It’s been slightly over a full year since the start of the experiment (but not a full year since it ended, on day eighty eight), and Leah can’t help but notice how they’re all so different, yet still the same on the day they hear the verdict. Dot’s hair is longer, streaked with pink. She’d pierced her septum at some point. (She still wears cargo pants.) Shelby’s hair is shorter (but still blonde), and she shows up to court in a suit instead of a dress. (She’s been living at Dot’s place since they got back, moved out of her parents’ house without giving an explanation.) Rachel shares stories about Nora with more ease than before, cracks jokes about her hand, talks about the kids she’s just started to coach back in New York. Maybe Martha and Toni have changed the least, except Toni’s lined up to play basketball at _college_ (where she’s going to be rooming with Martha, obviously), and everyone gives her shit for that. (But really, they’re all so excited for both of them.)

And Fatin Jadmani is still Fatin Jadmani. She shows up on the day the jury reads the verdict with Dot and Shelby. (Just the three of them.) Fatin never misses an opportunity to go all out and get completely dressed up, and what better day to do that than the day you find out you’re never going to have to get a job if you don’t want to?

They don’t talk. Leah and Fatin. Fatin doesn’t try, and Leah sure as hell isn’t going to. (And the others notice. Of course they do. They all know some version of what went down. Rachel, Shelby, and Dot probably know the most, but Leah has no doubt that Shelby at least filled Toni in, and Toni would’ve told Martha, so there’s no such thing as secrets between them, apparently. Except Dot has stayed silent, so maybe it’s Leah’s fault everyone knows, then.) And once they know the verdict, once Gretchen is handcuffed and taken away, Leah rejoins her parents, watches as Rachel goes to hers as well, watches Toni and Martha hug Martha’s mom and sisters. (Fatin, Dot, and Shelby stick together, hug each other, share laughs and dab at their eyes, before Shelby peels off to see Toni.)

“Leah!”

Leah turns back, eyebrows raised. Dot pushes through people to reach her outside of the courtroom, and when Leah’s parents look to her, she tells them she can catch another ride home. (Worse comes to worst, she’ll call Ian. She’d told him not to come in case shit went badly, and he’d just said, “It can’t go wrong. Gretchen is going down for sure.”)

“Dot,” Leah says. (The trial took months, but she’s still barely talked to Dot. Too close to Fatin. And Leah’s not sure she can say anything to Dot without Fatin catching wind of it, so. Yeah. Easier to play the avoidance game with both of them rather than risk it.) Only then does Leah notice Shelby’s right behind Dot, a wide smile on her face. “Shelby? What’s…up?” Leah asks slowly.

“Well, since we’re rich as shit now – or soon will be, at least,” Dot says, grinning. “Shelby and I are moving out to California.”

“Oh,” Leah says. “Oh! That’s – that’s great news. Um, where do you think –?”

“Los Angeles, of course,” Shelby answers. She grabs onto Leah’s arm. “It’s going to be great.”

“Yeah, totally,” Leah agrees. “I’m super happy for you guys.”

They exchange a look, and Leah’s eyebrows pull together. “You’re coming with us,” Shelby says. “To house hunt out there.”

“Whoa,” Leah says. “Hang on. Los Angeles isn’t exactly close –”

“Well, we already talked to your parents,” Dot interrupts, jamming her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants. “And they said your schedule’s clear this weekend.”

“This…weekend?” Leah says faintly. “As in, like, two days from now?”

“Tomorrow, actually,” Dot says. “Figured we’d leave Friday morning, so be ready by six, okay? We’ll swing by to pick you up.”

“I – don’t – I don’t know about this,” Leah blurts. “I don’t think – I mean, what help am I going to be? I know nothing about Los Angeles or buying a house.”

“Leah. We want you there,” Shelby insists. “Please just say you’ll come along.”

So Leah caves. And she’s ready by six a.m. on Friday. (It doesn’t even occur to her that Shelby and Dot have been crashing at Fatin’s since the trial started, not until the car sitting outside of her house can only belong to one person.) There’s a fucking Cadillac Escalade (it does not slip Leah’s notice that this vehicle seats up to eight people) parked in her driveway. (Brand new. Only one person could afford that car without using the settlement money they currently do not have yet.)

**6:04 a.m.** _Yeah nice try but I’m not going_

**Shelby, 6:05 a.m.** _“Get your ass out here or I’m dragging you out.” – Dot_

And Leah doesn’t doubt her, so she trudges out with the bag she packed for their overnight stay in some flashy hotel (or it better be flashy, now that Leah knows that fucking Fatin Jadmani is funding this house hunting trip). Leah throws her bag in the trunk then gets in the backseat with Shelby.

“Hey, Leah,” Shelby says gently. Leah grunts. Shelby and Dot omitted a very vital piece of information when they talked about this yesterday. And it’s about a five hour drive, and the first hour goes by with the only noise between the four of them being the music. (Fatin’s choice, obviously. She’s driving. It’s her fucking brand new car. It still smells brand new, though that scent mingles with the overwhelming scent of Fatin’s perfume – a different one than she wore last year.) Shelby keeps stealing glances at Leah while Leah stares down at her phone, swaps texts with Ian that get less and less frantic as he reminds her to relax, says Fatin’s not going to do anything with Dot and Shelby there. (Says Leah doesn’t have to do or say anything to her. Tells her to just ride out the weekend and enjoy seeing Shelby and Dot, at least.)

“I’m surprised Toni didn’t come,” Leah says after she catches Shelby staring at her for the hundredth time. “Or was she not invited?”

“Toni and Martha had to catch their flight today,” Dot answers for Shelby. She twists around from the passenger’s seat to look at Leah. “Otherwise, yeah, they’d be here.”

“And Rachel?”

“Told us she trusts our judgment,” Dot dismisses. “So she’s flying back to New York tomorrow.”

(Trusts their judgment? Leah’s afraid to ask.)

“You seem awful absorbed with your phone, Leah,” Shelby observes. “Texting nonstop. Got someone special?”

Leah knows exactly what Shelby’s doing. Her eyes flick toward the front, toward Dot and Fatin as Dot grumbles about the music (but makes no move to change it). “Just a friend,” Leah mutters. (She’s been on exactly five dates in the last year with four different people. Two girls, two guys, including James the English major. He was the only one to get a second date, but sadly, he did not earn himself a third. Something just felt off, and Leah shut it down.)

“Dottie? Have you told Leah about…you know?”

Dot turns around and smirks. “Got a guy to propose to me,” she informs.

“What?” Leah exclaims. Her eyes drop to Dot’s hand, but there’s no ring. “Wait, then –”

Dot shrugs. “I turned him down. Guess I just realized I liked the idea of being with him more than I actually liked him, so. But yeah. Someone wanted to marry me.”

Leah laughs, because she doesn’t really know what to say to that, but Fatin grins and says, “Poor Mateo was never good enough for you anyway.” (And Leah’s eyes lock with Fatin’s in the rearview mirror. They both look away quickly, but it feels like some of the tension in the vehicle eases up a bit after that.) They reach Los Angeles around lunch time, argue over where to go eat before settling for something basic.

“So,” Dot says as they’re wrapping up their meal. “We need to talk about our plan.”

“We need a plan?” Leah questions.

“Yeah. This realtor is going to try to sell us the most expensive house available, and we aren’t going to be stupid and do that, okay? We’re going to find one big enough for the seven of us –”

“The seven of us?” Leah interrupts. “Whoa, wait. I never agreed to move down to Los Angeles with you all. And Rachel, Toni, and Martha –”

“You let me worry about those three,” Dot cuts in. “And you’re here this weekend, obviously, so we can convince you to do it. So? It’ll be a lot easier if you just say yes.”

And for the first time since they were forced to share the same space together (first in a car, and now in a restaurant), Leah looks Fatin straight in the face. For a whole three seconds before she says, “No. I’m not leaving the Bay.”

“You are,” Dot insists. “You aren’t turning us down.”

“You’re right. I’m not. I’m turning living with _Fatin_ down,” Leah says.

“Fatin doesn’t mind,” Dot says.

“Yeah? I’d like to hear her say that.”

Fatin swallows, musters up a (fake) smile. “I don’t mind,” she says. (And it looks like those three simple words cause her some measure of physical pain.)

Leah snorts. “You fucking liar. You’re just letting Dot push you around now.”

“Hey, I don’t think that’s totally fair to say,” Shelby interjects.

“No, this is, like, so uncool,” Leah bursts. (They’re starting to draw attention, but Leah can’t quite care.) “First you didn’t even bother to tell me she’d be here because you _knew_ I wouldn’t come if I knew about it. Now you’re trying to convince me to move in with the three of you? Why? So I can wake up and have to see Fatin every fucking day of my life? I get that we did that for three months, because we literally had no other choice, but I’m done. The island is over. I’m _free_. And Fatin clearly didn’t give enough of a fuck a year ago to even _try_ to fix anything between us, so I’m not about to drop my life and – and move to LA!”

Silence. Shelby and Dot stare at Leah, and Fatin stares at anything else. (The table. The wall. The people passing by the window.) Some of the other customers in the restaurant are staring straight at them, and some are avoiding looking over at their section of the building.

“You know what?” Leah seethes. She drops her napkin onto the table, stands abruptly. “I’m fucking out of here. I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

Dot jumps up and grabs Leah’s arm, holds on just tight enough to stop her from leaving the table. “You don’t have a car.”

“I’ll get a fucking Uber.”

“Or you two could just talk it out?” Shelby suggests.

“No,” Leah says. “We’re way past that.”

“Come on, you guys,” Dot scoffs. “This is _fucking insane_. If you two would just sit down and, I don’t know, maybe have a goddamn conversation, we could avoid this mess.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not moving to LA,” Leah says. “You can’t just create a plan and expect all of us to go along with it! Toni and Martha are set to go to college in _Minnesota_. Rachel has a whole life in _New York_. I get that I’m physically the closest to LA out of all of us, but maybe I don’t want to leave my home. You never even bothered to _ask_. Just assumed I would upend my entire life for this.”

Dot sighs, but Shelby says, “No, you’re right. We didn’t ask. And we should’ve. I’m sorry for that.”

Leah relaxes a little, starts to sit back down, and Dot finally lets go of her arm. They sit in silence for a few minutes. (Dot and Fatin exchange a long look, as if they can have a whole conversation without saying a damn thing.) Shelby watches Leah, almost nervously, like she’s waiting for another outburst. Suddenly Dot’s phone goes off, and she pulls it out, mutters something about the realtor being ready. So they get back in the Escalade (except _Dot_ drives this time, and Shelby doesn’t react as if this is something weird, so Leah figures that’s her answer to a question she’d never ask aloud anyway) and they start seeing some houses.

Fatin, unsurprisingly, has plenty to say about every place they see. She points out all the flaws before she ever says anything positive then looks to Dot for her opinion. And Dot, surprisingly, _also_ has plenty to say. (Though her complaints aren’t quite on the same level as Fatin’s. They’re more like _we’re going to have to rip out all the floors because look, they’re fucked up_ compared to Fatin’s _ugh, I fucking hate these countertops_.) They only spend five minutes at the second house the realtor shows them, because Dot takes one look around and declares, “This may be big enough for seven regular people, but it’s not big enough for the Unsinkable Seven and definitely not at that price. Next.”

“So you’re seriously trying to move all seven of us into one house?” Leah asks as they walk back to the Escalade.

“Yeah,” Dot says. “That’s the plan.”

“Three months with all of us wasn’t enough for you?” Leah questions. (It’s sort of a weak attempt at a joke.)

Dot shrugs. “Was it enough for you?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Dot just grins, grabs Leah by the shoulder, and pushes her toward the passenger’s seat before Leah can argue. So Leah gets stuck up front with Fatin as they drive to the next house, almost an entire twenty minutes away.

“You two are driving me nuts,” Shelby sighs. “Can you just _say_ something to each other? Please?”

“I have nothing to say,” Leah says. She continues to stare straight ahead, and she knows Fatin does the same (though she at least has the excuse of driving) because Leah can see her in her peripheral vision.

“We survived three months on a fucking deserted island together,” Dot says. She leans up between the two front seats, looking between Leah and Fatin.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Fatin says, sticking her arm out to try to force Dot back. “You know how I drive.”

“I’m just saying. We’ve been through worse. I think you two can suck it up, apologize or whatever, and act like adults.”

“Dottie,” Shelby says. She touches Dot’s arm, and Dot finally sits back (and puts her seatbelt on). Leah has to strain to be able to hear Shelby’s next sentence, whispered _just_ loud enough. “Maybe we shouldn’t meddle in their business.”

Dot snorts. “Well, it’s bullshit, so I’m not gonna do _nothing_.”

“I can hear you,” Leah points out. “I’m right here.”

“Ditto,” Fatin says.

“You’re being stupid. Both of you,” Dot says.

“You know what’s stupid? The way we,” Leah motions between her and Fatin, “had to put up with all the bullshit Leatin rumors for months and months – I mean, shit, go on Twitter right now and you’ll _still_ find them, while the rest of you got to, like, mostly live your fucking lives undisturbed. Tell me you two would be completely fine if the internet went apeshit every time you stepped out in public together.”

Dot and Shelby glance at each other, but neither seems eager to say living under the scrutiny of social media (and sometimes, the actual news media) sounds fun. “Still,” Dot says slowly. “That’s not exactly the whole story…?”

“Yeah, well, the rest of it is none of your fucking business, no matter what Fatin might’ve told you.”

“Me?” Fatin exclaims. “How about _you_ spreading all our shit to fucking _Rachel_ , who I thought hated you, and to Miss Texas back there who can’t keep her mouth shut and funnels everything straight to Toni, who _never_ holds back with Martha. So really, _you’re_ the reason all our fucking friends know.”

“That all our friends know what?” Leah challenges. “That you’ll fuck every guy in the entire East Bay but you backed out of something that _you_ started when it was me?”

It’s a goddamn miracle that Fatin doesn’t wrap the Escalade around a tree. She _does_ slam on the brakes with enough force to cause all their seatbelts to lock (and to make Dot incredibly grateful for putting a seatbelt on in the first place). Out of the corner of her eye, Leah sees Dot wince and look to Shelby for some indication of what they should do (because surely this isn’t what they had in mind when they said they wanted Leah and Fatin to talk). Shelby’s got this stunned look on her face that would be funny in literally any other situation. (Someone behind them honks their horn, and Fatin hits the accelerator, causing all their backs to hit the seats.)

“Okay, guys –” Shelby says, but she’s immediately drowned out by Fatin raising her voice.

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course I don’t!” Leah shouts. “I just know what happened, but you never felt the need to try to fill me in on what the fuck might’ve been going on with you, so, you know, I took the hint.”

“Obviously you didn’t, because I didn’t want to talk about it, and you wouldn’t drop it.”

“Why should I have? And don’t _even_ tell me I didn’t take the hint. I only tried for literally two days then let it go. It’s not my fault you didn’t even _try_ to reach out or – or give any sort of explanation at all.”

“What did you want me to say?” Fatin asks. She lifts her hands from the steering wheel, drops them back down.

“Fatin, you have to turn up ahead,” Dot says. Fatin waves her off. (Dot grabs the front of her shirt, uses it to fan herself before cracking a window and muttering something about it suddenly being hot in here.) “Right! Turn right!”

The Escalade’s tires squeal as Fatin makes the (sharp) turn, given that she almost misses it. “Hmm?” Fatin prompts when Leah stays silent. “What did you want to hear? _I’m sorry, I couldn’t go through with fucking you and I don’t know why?_ ”

“That would’ve been better than fucking radio silence,” Leah retorts.

“Guys,” Shelby says weakly.

“No, you couldn’t even admit you didn’t know what was going on,” Leah continues. “You just let me take a wild guess at it and walk away. You didn’t try to talk to me. At all. I would’ve fucking accepted _hey, I don’t know_. It would’ve been better than your total fucking avoidance.”

“Because you’ve always been so great at communicating your shit,” Fatin scoffs. “I’m not going to take a lecture from _you_.”

“At least I try.”

“Guys!” Dot yells. (Fatin instinctively hits the brakes again, skidding to a stop.) “Perfect,” Dot says. “Because this is our stop.”

Leah rushes out of the Escalade, blows off Shelby’s attempt to get her to cool down.

(“Shelbs, it’s cool. Come on,” Dot says quietly, pulling Shelby toward the front door, where the realtor patiently waits for them. “Let them duke it out.”

“Okay, but if fists actually start flying, it’s on you,” Shelby replies. “I think you of all people know Fatin can throw a punch.”)

“This really couldn’t wait?” Fatin demands the moment after she slams the door and locks the car. (So they’re gonna stand at the curb and fight it out, apparently.) “You just _had_ to air all our shit out in front of –”

“Two people who already know it?” Leah finishes for her. “Might as well.”

“You know, everyone except Dot took your side,” Fatin says, pushing at Leah’s chest. (Leah decides to let it go, but only because it doesn’t come remotely close to actually knocking her off balance.)

“There aren’t any sides,” Leah says. “Or if there are, no one made me aware of it.”

“Please. Rachel won’t give me the time of day. Toni and Martha get all fucking weird around me. And Shelby feels bad for you and thinks I’m the bad guy, so. Literally everyone except Dot has had your back over mine for the entire last year.”

“I think we could both agree I needed the support more anyway, right?” Leah says quietly. “You’ve always had your shit together a little better than me.”

“I didn’t tell you to cut yourself off from me,” Fatin says. “It’s not my fault that you did.”

“What happened is your fault.”

“Then blame me for it,” Fatin says, shaking her head. “Whatever. But if you’re going to blame me, you can stay out of my life.”

Leah grabs Fatin’s arm, stops her from walking past her. “Just tell me what happened,” Leah pleads. “And we can – we can try to move forward. But I can’t – I need to know. What did I do wrong?”

Fatin falters. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally says. She sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb. “What would’ve happened?” Fatin asks abruptly.

“Huh?”

“If we’d gone through with it. At that fucking party. What would’ve happened next?” Fatin clarifies (but not really, because Leah still wears her confusion openly on her face). “I mean, like, what? We’d be like, _great, thanks, see you in school on Monday_? Or what? Jump on Twitter to confirm that _#Leatin is real_? What would’ve fucking happened if I hadn’t stopped us?”

Leah’s jaw hangs open, because goddamn it, she doesn’t know. (Never thought that far, could never get past analyzing Fatin suddenly interrupting them and then found – learned? – a way to shove it all aside and focus on her life again.) “I didn’t –”

“Yeah, you never thought about that,” Fatin snaps. “Obviously. But I did, like, five seconds after your hand was in my panties.”

Leah scoffs incredulously. “You told me to sit on your face, like, right before that.”

“And that, I could’ve handled,” Fatin says.

“What was – you don’t – none of this makes sense! You’re saying if I would’ve sat on your face, everything would’ve been fine, but –” (Leah pauses, realizes maybe she shouldn’t be screaming this in a residential area.) “God forbid I try to act like, not selfish, and I paid for it.”

Fatin shrugs. “So maybe it is your fault.”

Leah shoves her (tries not to think about the island), but Fatin seems ready, barely budges even though Leah put some weight behind it. “Can you even hear how ridiculous this all sounds?” Leah hisses.

“You couldn’t have just let me take the lead, could you? You had to, like, fucking dominate me or something.”

“That is not even _close_ to what happened!”

(Fatin’s eyes drop to Leah’s hands, curled into fists, and she hesitates for a second.) “Are you going to try to punch me? Because fair warning, I’ll hit back.” (Leah uncurls her fists, takes a deep breath.)

“You came onto me,” Leah reminds. “And I never rejected you, so I don’t get – what was the big deal?”

Fatin’s jaw clenches, but there’s nothing even close to anger in her eyes. (Maybe it’s closer to pain. Leah can’t be sure.) “Maybe it all just got a little too real then, Leah,” Fatin says. “So I panicked, okay? Sue me for not wanting to talk about something, like, super embarrassing.”

“Let me – let me get this straight,” Leah says, pressing her fingertips against her temples as if that’ll stave off her oncoming headache. “You wanted to fuck me…but only in a specific way?”

Fatin looks around as if drawing any other conclusion would be crazy. “Yes.”

“That’s not – I don’t – is that how it always is for you?”

“Yes?”

(You know, shit made more sense before they ever had this conversation, when Leah knew nothing and only had theories.)

“Why?” Leah asks.

Fatin shrugs. “I don’t think I actually owe you an explanation for why I’m the way I am.”

“You still didn’t have to refuse to ever talk to me about it. We could’ve had this conversation a year ago, and maybe –”

“Maybe what? We’d work through it and have a good cry and get married? Fuck off with that.”

Leah balks (but her brain comes through, analyzes something that should be irrational and makes it _so_ rational that Leah can’t _not_ blurt it out). The pieces fall into place so fast, it’s a wonder she never put it together before. (She really should’ve. It was right in front of her face. It was so obvious. She was staring right at it, and she let herself rationalize it away. The party was just the tipping point, the real smack in the face. But now, as Fatin makes a crack about _marriage_ , when that is in no way where they were a year ago – well, if Leah’s wrong, maybe she’ll ruin Dot and Shelby’s house hunting day by taking a trip to the ER. But there’s the _four_ times they kissed _before_ the party, there’s Fatin pulling her away from James the English major and _then_ away from the girl whose name Leah never got. There’s Fatin actually making a move but _panicking_ – in her words – because _shit got too real_. The only thing Leah really did wrong was assuming Fatin can’t do feelings. Well, okay, it seems like Fatin isn’t _good_ at doing feelings, but she does feel things – Leah needs to start talking.)

“You liked me,” she accuses. (Watches the way Fatin can’t quite conceal the mild panic that flashes in her eyes.) “Oh my God,” Leah breathes. “You _did_ , and I was too dumb to think you could ever – you panicked when you lost control of things because you fuck without feelings, and you had _feelings_ for me.”

(And Fatin can’t even deny it.)

*

They learn their lesson after the first thunderstorm catches them off guard, and at least now they have a cave to retreat to when the weather turns on them. Which it does again, on day nine. Leah’s still on shaky ground with Fatin, even though they’ve swapped apologies for the whole shoving-and-blood-smearing incident. Shelby and Toni haven’t gotten along since day one, and nothing has changed there. There’s some tension between Toni and Martha that neither of them seems interested in talking about. Rachel and Nora always seem to have some sibling shit going on (but they haven’t bothered to enlighten everyone else about what their issues are). Spending all day in a small cave trapped with these people? Fucking nightmare. (Still better than sitting out in the rain or risking getting struck by lightning.)

Dot breaks up more than one argument. (First between Rachel and Nora, snipping at each other over something stupid. Leah doesn’t even know what it’s about, and she doesn’t bother to find out. Shortly after, it’s Toni and Shelby going at it. Toni gets heated, but Shelby stays as calm as ever as they argue, and that makes Toni even angrier, and Dot has to physically shove herself between them. Then it’s Nora and Rachel again, yelling at each other from across the cave. And while Dot’s trying to shut them up, Shelby makes some comment that pisses Toni off again, so they’re yelling, too, and Dot looks like she’s ready to rip her hair out.

“Will you _do_ something?” Dot exclaims, motioning toward Leah, Fatin, and Martha. (Leah and Fatin exchange a look. Martha stares down at her hands, lips pressed together.)

“Like what?” Fatin questions. (She has to shout over Rachel and Nora and Toni and Shelby, plus over the sound of the rain and thunder.) “I’m not getting clocked by Toni or Rachel for interfering in their personal shit. Hard pass.”

“Yeah,” Leah agrees. She glances over at Rachel and Nora, and they could be, like, seconds away from throwing hands. Toni and Shelby are getting in each other’s faces, but they seem like mostly talk. Leah doesn’t actually believe Toni would swing at Shelby, and Shelby almost definitely wouldn’t. (That wouldn’t be very Christian of her.) And if they want to scream at each other all day, who is she to stop them? “I mean, it’s not like they’re our responsibility.”

(And that’s their problem at first, isn’t it? The mindset that they aren’t all in this mess together. That _every girl for herself_ mindset. It gets better, gradually, but by day nine, they still haven’t completely clicked, haven’t resigned themselves to the fact that all they really have is each other, whether they like it or not.)

“Honestly,” Fatin says, as quietly as feasibly possible given all the noise (and as she leans closer to Leah), “I don’t mind the free entertainment.”

“Better than sitting here doing nothing,” Leah agrees. (Maybe just to help keep herself on Fatin’s good side. Frankly, Leah wouldn’t mind sitting quietly, listening to the thunderstorm outside of the cave.)

“Ten says Rachel knocks Nora out within the next five minutes,” Fatin says.

“Dot won’t let that happen,” Leah says.

Fatin snorts. “Dot can’t stop a sibling fight. Please. Shit can get vicious. I’ve seen my brothers go at it. I’m, like, twice their height and I still won’t get in the middle of that.”

“They’ll work it out,” Martha says, and Leah jumps, not realizing Martha had been listening in on them. “Eventually. Probably.” She looks at the doubtful look on Leah’s face. “What? Don’t have siblings?” she asks Leah.

“No.”

“No wonder you don’t get it then,” Fatin huffs. (But she flashes Leah a smile then returns her eyes to the two arguments happening in front of them.) “I’m surprised you haven’t told Toni off yet,” Fatin tells Martha.

“She can do what she wants,” Martha mutters. “She’s not my problem.”

Fatin’s head tilts to the side, but she seems to know not to ask about that. “I’ve got ten on Shelby, too,” Fatin says. “If they actually fight. I feel like Shelby can, like, dig deep. She may be a pageant girl, but she can probably throw a punch, right? Or at least put those claws of hers to good use.”

“I’m not going to bet on hypothetical fights,” Leah says.

“I’ve got twenty on Shelby,” Martha says. “Just because I’d want to see her win.”

“Shit,” Fatin chuckles. “Something serious happened between you and Shalifoe, huh?”

“Not talking about it.”

“Right, right,” Fatin says. She leans back against the cave wall, smirking as she watches Dot futilely try to shut everyone up. “Rachel’s gonna crack any second,” Fatin says. “Look at her. She’s dying to knock out some of Nora’s teeth.”

“I think Nora could hold her own,” Leah says. “You’re underestimating her.”

“You wanna put money on it?” Fatin questions.

“No! I already said I’m not betting on hypothetical fights.”

“Well, when shit gets real,” Fatin says, “then we’ll talk again.”

Toni and Shelby’s dispute ends because Toni gets up and storms off into the rain, much to Dot’s displeasure. “She’s gonna get herself fucking struck by lightning out there,” Dot complains. “And then what?”

“Then we’ll have some peace and quiet?” Fatin says. (Leah doesn’t need to elbow her, but she does anyway.) Fatin shoots her a glare, rubbing at her ribs, before she adds, “Well, once Rachel and Nora shut up.”

Their argument dies down without any fist fighting (and Fatin looks obviously disappointed). Rachel and Nora shift to opposite ends of the cave, and it’s not even because Dot makes them. Dot drops down with a heavy (exhausted) sigh.

“Is anyone gonna go after Toni?” Dot asks.

“And get soaked? Are you crazy?” Fatin replies. “No.”

Everyone looks at Martha. “Do _not_ look at me,” Martha says, and they all look away. (And that’s the end of that.)

Later, when the rain starts to ease up a little, when the lightning strikes become fewer and farther between, Fatin leans toward Leah and whispers, “Hey, so when did we become the most put together out of everyone? I mean, just a couple days ago, we might’ve killed each other, and here we are, _not fighting_ while everyone else loses it.”

Leah grunts. “I don’t know.”

“Kinda weird, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” Dot announces. “The rain’s not nearly as bad, so. I guess I’m gonna go find Toni. Someone has to.”

Fatin jumps to her feet. “I’ll go with,” she volunteers. (Leah doesn’t know how – or why – those two became such fast friends, doesn’t know if it happened slowly or all at once. It’s only been nine days, so, it must’ve happened relatively quickly. She kinda would’ve expected the two Texans to stick together. But by that logic then, Leah and Fatin should be the best of friends since they’re both from the Bay. But Fatin and Dot? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, if you ask Leah. They couldn’t be any more different.)

“Alright, y’all,” Shelby says, getting to her feet and brushing dirt from her legs. “I think we’re good to go back to camp. Hopefully Dottie and Fatin have found Toni.”

They all trudge back through the wet sand, but at least Dot and Fatin actually have found Toni, and they’re gathered around what used to be their campfire. (Toni’s soaked to the bone. She doesn’t look at any of them as they approach, but she _especially_ does not look at Shelby.)

“Welcome home,” Dot says. “Can we all maybe chill out a bit now? No more arguing?”

“Fine,” Rachel grumbles.

“Whatever,” Toni mutters. “Just keep the Jesus freak away from me.”

Shelby doesn’t bother to hide the fact that she’s offended, but she also doesn’t take the bait and start up another argument. She sits with Nora, strikes up a friendly conversation instead. Leah lingers near Martha, now that Martha doesn’t seem eager to sit with Toni (or Shelby, for that matter, but maybe that’s just because she doesn’t want to interrupt Shelby’s conversation with Nora right now). And Fatin and Dot are talking about something, but they’re out of earshot, so Leah can’t guess what. (But they’re grinning, gesturing off toward…somewhere. Maybe where they found Toni? Maybe it’s something unrelated. But they’re very relaxed around each other, like they’ve been friends for nine years instead of nine days.)

“Hey, maybe we could all play a game?” Shelby suggests.

(They all groan, but they all agree.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my feelings on this chapter have been very mixed since I wrote it. I could raise my complaints about it, but I'll spare you unless you point something out to me lmao. From this point on, though, we'll get to see more of the girls in the present timeline.
> 
> You have all been so amazing, so please keep sharing your thoughts with me. I'll respond as quickly as I can. I love you all. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	19. 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 3 in the morning for me. I stayed up to finish the first draft of another fic. I probably won't wake up until noon, so I just decided to post this chapter in the middle of the fucking night so y'all don't have to wait for my sleep deprived ass tomorrow. Hope you enjoy it.

“Deny it.”

Fatin stays silent. (They’ve gotten back in the car, Fatin behind the wheel. Dot and Shelby might actually like this house, since they’re taking so fucking long, but Leah’s pretty sure the neighbors overheard her conversation with Fatin, so this one’s a no from her.)

“What’s the point of going fucking silent now?” Leah demands.

“Okay,” Fatin snaps. “I liked you. Are you happy?”

Leah hesitates. “Liked? As in, past tense?”

“Yes. Now stop riding my dick.”

“So…you don’t now?”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “We’ve barely interacted in a year, Leah. I’m not even sure I know who you are anymore.”

(Ouch.)

“Right,” Leah says. “Well, I wish you would’ve fucking said something back then.”

“No.”

“Why not? You don’t even know what could’ve happened.”

Fatin turns her head to stare straight into Leah’s eyes. (And Fatin kind of looks pissed? Maybe?) “I have a pretty good idea,” Fatin says. She holds her hand up to silence Leah before Leah has the chance to argue. “Even if you did like me back, I would’ve just fucked everything up anyway. Honestly, you probably got lucky things turned out the way they did.”

“So that’s it then? You didn’t even want to take a chance? What were you so afraid of?”

Fatin sighs heavily. “Is that your way of saying you liked me back, Rilke? And you’re just _so_ disappointed that I didn’t, like, fucking ask you out?”

Leah doesn’t answer that.

“You weren’t exactly easy to read, you know,” Fatin continues. “And the way you freaked out over all the Leatin bullshit? It’s like all you did was worry about what people thought was happening between us instead of, like, _worrying about what was happening between us_.”

“So something was happening.”

Fatin blinks. “We almost fucked. I’m pretty sure _something_ was going on.” Fatin shakes her head. “I kissed you, like, four times. I’m not counting the time you kissed me when you were high, because you were high and we were stranded on an island. But I kissed you in the bunker,” Fatin says, counting it off on her hand, “and I kissed you on the bike path, and I kissed you when I was drunk and you showed up at my house to check on me, and then I kissed you at that party. What more did I have to do to, like, get you to see –” Fatin cuts herself off, shakes her head again. “I guess it doesn’t fucking matter.”

“No, it kind of matters. And if you liked me, why didn’t you just fuck me then? Why stop?”

(The glare Fatin shoots Leah is enough to make her flinch like she’s been slapped.)

“Why _wouldn’t_ I stop? So I could get in way too deep when I didn’t even know if you wanted to fuck me because it was convenient or if it was because you actually liked me? And I was a little drunk, so I’m sorry it took me so long to have, like, a panic moment and shut shit down. And I know I was the one that kissed you and started everything, so I’m sorry for that, too, okay? I should’ve kept it in my fucking pants.”

Leah stares at Fatin in disbelief. “I wouldn’t have fucked you because it was _convenient_. I only fuck people I –” (Almost got _way_ too honest there. It’s too late. Fatin knows, at least roughly, what Leah intended to say, and Fatin’s nodding.) “We should’ve talked,” Leah says. “I thought my biggest regret was always gonna be giving Jeff my number, but maybe it’s not forcing you to talk to me a year ago.”

“You couldn’t have done anything else,” Fatin says. (The front door opens, and the realtor leads Dot and Fatin out, pauses in front of the house and waves his hand around as he speaks. Anyway, they’re almost out of time.) “You did what you could, and it doesn’t matter now. That’s over and done with.” Fatin exhales heavily, taps her fingers against her thighs. “Can we at least agree to try to get along? Dot and Shelby really want this whole _moving the Unsinkable Seven to LA_ thing to work.”

“Yeah,” Leah says. “Yeah, let’s just – we can be friends, right?”

“Yeah,” Fatin says. “But we’re not going to let the Texans out there think we’re, like, suddenly best buds, so. Don’t be too nice to me yet.” They share a smile right before the door to the backseat opens. “So?” Fatin questions. “What’d you think of this one?”

“It’s a total no,” Dot says. “All kinds of problems. First off, though. Not enough bathrooms. What if we all get food poisoning at the same time again?”

“Ugh, don’t even _start_ with that,” Fatin groans. “But you’re right. We need to have enough bathrooms.”

“Maybe the next place will be better,” Leah says.

(Dot and Shelby look between Leah and Fatin, then at each other. They can feel that something has shifted, that most of the tension that had been following them all day has dissipated. They both opt not to say anything.)

Leah and Fatin’s truce allows the rest of the day to go smoothly. They look at houses as a group. Shit on the bad houses, argue over the good houses (and the prices). They snap pictures of the top contenders and send them in the Unsinkable Seven group chat so Toni, Martha, and Rachel can give their opinions. (Toni’s only opinion is _I don’t care where we live as long as Shelby and I get the biggest bedroom, since we’re a couple so the rest of you can fuck yourselves._ Rachel repeats that she trusts Dot’s judgment. Martha says as long as there’s enough room for Marcus, she doesn’t care, either.) So Dot, Shelby, Leah, and Fatin whittle it down to three potential houses, all large enough for the seven of them (and Marcus – and probably even a few more people, if they wanted) and all without any serious problems (even if they’ll have to repaint everything and rip out some of the floors or renovate the kitchen – Dot swears she likes DIY projects, anyway, and she bets Rachel won’t mind helping).

They finally get to the hotel, and it’s nothing overly fancy, the way Leah was expecting. It’s the kind of place she’d stay in with her parents when they went on road trips to visit her aunt on the East Coast.

(“What?” Dot says defensively. “The hotel’s perfectly fine. I made a smart choice. We can’t spend money we don’t have yet.”

“It’s my money, Dorothy. You could’ve picked a hotel with more than a three star rating.”

“I didn’t want to assume I was allowed to drop two grand for a one night stay.”

“Ugh, God, next time I’m booking the fucking hotel! What name did you book it under?”

“Obviously yours.”)

Fatin approaches the front desk, musters up a strained smile. “Hi. I believe I have two rooms booked under Fatin Jadmani?”

The guy behind the desk is definitely not over thirty, and he looks horrendously bored until Fatin gives him her name. “Fatin Jadmani?” he parrots.

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“No, it’s just – you were part of that trial,” he says. “You just won a _massive_ amount of money. What are you doing here?”

“Ask Dorothy,” Fatin says flatly.

(“It’s called being responsible with money!”)

“Besides, they don’t just hand you a check on the way out of the courtroom,” Fatin says, rolling her eyes. “Do we have two rooms or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Um, here are your room keys. You’re on the fifth floor. Um…enjoy your stay?”

“Are you asking me?” Fatin questions.

“Enjoy your stay,” the guy says, more firmly this time around, and Fatin smiles as his face reddens. She takes the keycards, hands one to Dot.

“Thank you,” Fatin says. She leads the way to the elevator. Right before the door slides shut, a hand catches it, and two frat bros (at least, they look like frat bros with their muscle tees and their backwards snapbacks) slip in. Leah watches Fatin check them both out, exchange a look with Dot, and then they both nod appreciatively. Leah pulls her phone out, texts Fatin for the first time in forever.

**6:48 p.m.** _Do NOT bring anyone back to the room_

Fatin checks her phone, busts out laughing when she reads the text. The two dudes look back at her, and Fatin flashes them a wide smile, tucks her phone in her pocket (without responding). The elevator dings (when they reach the fourth floor, so the two guys step out of the elevator) and Fatin doesn’t even wait for the doors to close before she says, “Don’t worry, guys. I’m not gonna fuck anyone in a room I’m sharing with one of you. That’d just be rude. Unless one of you wants to join, then we can talk –”

“Fatin,” Dot, Shelby, and Leah all say together.

“Right, right,” Fatin says. They get off on the fifth floor, walk to their rooms to discover that Dot booked rooms _across the hall_ from each other instead of adjacent to each other. “Dot!” Fatin complains. “We said –”

“I took what I could find, okay? You’re lucky we’re on the same floor,” Dot counters. She grabs Shelby’s arm, and before either Leah or Fatin can argue, Dot says, “Come on, Shelby. We’re across the hall.”

“There better be two beds,” Leah grumbles.

“You hear that, Dot?” Fatin says over her shoulder (as Dot struggles to get the door unlocked). “If there’s only one bed, you’re gonna be sharing with Shelby _and_ Leah.”

“There are two beds, dickface,” Dot retorts. “Quit whining. It’s one night. I think you’ll survive, given that we all spent three months sleeping on a beach together.”

(That’s hard to argue with.)

As Dot continues to struggle, Fatin gets their door open with one swipe of the keycard and leads the way inside. The room is basic. (Cramped, but maybe it just feels that way because Leah’s trapped with Fatin. Alone. Because Dot chose Shelby, which doesn’t make a lot of sense until Leah remembers that Dot and Shelby have lived under the same roof together in Texas for the last year.) There are two beds, thank God. Fatin immediately claims the one closest to the window by throwing her bag and then herself down on it and turning the TV on.

It’s still early, but it’s been a long ass day (and Leah’s exhausted – mostly emotionally). Leah showers, takes her time in the bathroom afterwards. She changes into something to sleep in then rejoins Fatin in the room. (Fatin’s already passed out on top of the bed. She hasn’t even bothered to take her shoes off. And she left some stupid reality show on, but the remote’s resting on her chest, so Leah doesn’t even think about trying to change it.) Leah flips the light off then gets into bed. (She falls asleep faster than she has in months. Crazy how the presence of another human being can lull her to sleep better than any sleeping pill out there.)

Spending the day with Dot, Shelby, _and_ Fatin has really dredged some shit up, though. And it’s not their fault, obviously, but Leah closes her eyes and she’s back on the island. (The dream is stupid, really, but it feels real. Leah doesn’t remember much, just that she tries to tell the others that they’re being watched, that this is some sick experiment, but no one believes her. Not even Fatin. They all just tell her she’s crazy. And it’s not like that isn’t what happened on the island occasionally, but Fatin usually had her back, so it’s an extra special kind of torture, watching this dream version of Fatin call her crazy, delusional. Tell her she’s finally snapped for good and that there’s no coming back from it now. Telling her to take her chances with the ocean –)

“Leah!” (And her eyes pop open, unknown words dying in her throat.)

Leah’s eyebrows pull together as she tries to figure out where the fuck she is (and why Fatin Jadmani is hovering over her, gripping tightly onto her arms). She hasn’t seen Fatin in a _year_ , so why – _shit,_ did they never get off the island? No, that’s ridiculous. Fatin looks perfect (no sun damage, no dirt, no blood).

“Where am I?” Leah says.

“You’re in a hotel in Los Angeles,” Fatin answers (doesn’t even hesitate, doesn’t ask why Leah doesn’t know where she is). “Dot and Shelby are across the hall, because Dot apparently doesn’t know what _adjacent_ means. Gretchen Klein is in jail. And we aren’t on that goddamn island, okay?”

Leah swallows hard, manages a nod. She lets her eyes stray from Fatin’s face, dart around the room. Yeah, it’s definitely a hotel room (even though Leah’s heart hammers in her chest like she’s just woken up in hell again). She’s definitely in a bed, wrapped up in the white sheets. (Fatin continues to kneel on the mattress next to her, continues to hold onto her arms as if to steady Leah even though she’s laying down.)

“What happened?” Leah asks. She lets her eyes close, braces herself for the answer. “Just – just give it to me straight, okay? What did I do or say?”

“I – just – you were just repeating _I’m not crazy_ ,” Fatin admits. “But, like, you got louder and louder.”

Leah exhales softly. “I’m not crazy,” she murmurs.

“I know.”

Leah’s eyes open. Light from the TV flickers, and Leah can just make out the sound of quiet sitcom laughter. She stares up at Fatin. ( _Fatin_. The one fucking person who kept her sane on that _fucking_ island.) “I’m not crazy,” Leah repeats. (She doesn’t know why she feels compelled to say it again, to remind Fatin.)

“I know,” Fatin says. (And she sounds so sure of herself, so confident, and she’s still holding onto Leah’s arms, like she’s single-handedly keeping Leah rooted in reality, even a year later, even though they’ve barely spoken since last September, even though there’s a whole lot of shit between them.)

“Don’t go,” Leah whispers, and Fatin nods right away, squeezes Leah’s arms.

“Okay,” Fatin agrees. “I’ll be right back, alright?”

Fatin lets go of Leah, gets off the bed but only to go grab one of those overpriced waters out of the mini-fridge. Before Leah can tell her not to waste the money, Fatin cracks it open, forces Leah to take the bottle. (Leah gulps half the bottle down in one go then hands the bottle back, watches Fatin set it on the table next to where her rings and the _fucking_ island watch are.)

“Why won’t you get rid of that thing?” Leah asks. (Her voice is maybe a little hoarse.) Fatin doesn’t answer her as she pulls the covers back far enough to get beneath them. She settles on her back next to Leah then turns her head to look at her.

“Hmm? What thing?” Fatin asks.

“The fucking watch. You could buy a new one. A hundred new ones, especially with the money we just won. Why do you have to keep that one?”

“It’s a reminder,” Fatin answers. Leah peers over at her, studies Fatin’s expression, but Fatin looks as relaxed as ever. (Her eyes have drifted back to the TV, to the rerun of an old sitcom.)

“Of what?” Leah questions. “I mean, do we really need more reminders of that fucking place?”

“It’s not a reminder of the island,” Fatin replies. “I guess it could be, but that’s not what I think about when I look at that watch.”

“Then?”

Fatin inhales deeply, doesn’t seem bothered by the way Leah’s eyes haven’t left her face since she first got into the bed with her. “It’s a reminder of who I am,” Fatin says. “And who I shouldn’t let myself be. I don’t think of the island when I look at that watch. I think of how I caught my father cheating when I went to make sure he placed the winning bid for that hunk of metal.”

Leah’s breath hitches in her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Fatin smirks gently. “You didn’t cheat on my mother and destroy my family, did you? Tell me now.”

Leah rolls her eyes, pushes at Fatin’s arm. “How are your brothers?” Leah asks. (She realizes she doesn’t know. She hasn’t spoken to Fatin in a long time.)

“Good, I think,” Fatin says.

“You’re really okay with leaving them behind?”

“I’ll visit,” Fatin says. “Or they can visit us. My mom – she has it under control. She’s handling it.”

“She is?”

Fatin hums. “It took time, but I think she’s finally seeing she can do better. I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t think my brothers would be okay.”

“She’s going to divorce him?” Leah asks. “Wait, I’m sorry. That’s none of my –”

“She got a lawyer two months ago,” Fatin interrupts. “She’s on it.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“It’s messy,” Fatin says. “They’re fighting it out. But I think I’ve meddled enough, so.” Fatin pauses, takes a deep breath before she asks, “What about you? What’ve you been up to? How’s Ian?”

“Ian’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Really? That’s all you’ve got for me?”

“I’m boring, Fatin,” Leah says.

“How’s my boy?” Fatin asks. At the confused look on Leah’s face, she says, “Buster. How’s he doing?”

Leah laughs. “He’s fine, thanks.”

“Okay, I was worried, you know.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “You worried about the damn dog but not about me. Thanks.”

Fatin’s expression softens. “I never said I didn’t worry about you.”

“You didn’t reach out.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to. You didn’t reach out, either. To be fair.”

“I knew you wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Not about that,” Fatin admits. “But I would’ve been your friend still.”

Leah’s teeth sink into her lower lip. (Now her eyes lock onto the TV screen even though she knows Fatin is watching her.) “I wouldn’t have been able to handle that. Not without talking about it. And you didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t want to pretend nothing happened.”

“Well, we talked about it now. It’s in the past. Over with. Old news. So we’re good, right?”

“We’re good,” Leah says. “I’m sorry for waking you up. And dragging you out of bed. I know how much you were dying to sleep alone.”

Fatin smiles, shakes her head. “Whatever. Sleeping alone is overrated.” (Fatin looks like she wants to say more, so Leah waits.) “I dream about it, too,” Fatin says. “The island. It’s hard not to, right?”

“I think you guys triggered it,” Leah admits. “Seeing you and Shelby and Dot again. That sounds so bad, but –”

“No, it makes sense,” Fatin says. “And the trial just ended and everything. It makes sense.”

Leah’s eyes suddenly water, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek in an attempt to control it. (She fails.) “It’s gonna happen again, Fatin.”

“Hmm? What is?” Fatin asks softly. She reaches over, fingers wrapping gently around Leah’s forearm.

“The fucking media shit show.”

“Hey, don’t worry about that,” Fatin says. “Not yet. Besides, you know I’ll be getting most of the attention. I’m obviously the hottest member of the Unsinkable Seven.”

Leah huffs in a way that’s almost a laugh, but the tears still spill over. Fatin leans over, swipes them away with her fingertips. “I’m sorry, it’s so –”

“It’s not stupid,” Fatin assures her. “You’re right. They already came for us once. Helped drive a wedge between us, right? But the attention will die down after a while. And we’ll have the other girls with us if Shelby can convince Martha and Toni to transfer out here. Or they’ll at least spend the summers, and you know Toni will fight a bitch if she has to. Anyway, what I’m saying is, it’ll blow over. Something else even crazier will happen, and everyone will forget we exist.”

Leah sniffles, nods. (Fatin’s hand is still on her arm.) “I’m not going to be able to sleep.”

“It’s okay,” Fatin says. “I’ll sit up with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Leah. It’s okay.”

*

“So I asked Dot which celebrity she’d marry if given the choice, right? Because if she’s like any of the other straight girls I know, she should totally have an answer to that. You know what she said?”

Leah stops walking, stares blankly at Fatin. (It’s day thirty three. They’re on water duty together. Just a happy accident, Leah supposes. And Fatin hasn’t shut up since they left camp.) “No,” Leah says. “Should I know?”

“She said _Jake Gyllenhaal_ ,” Fatin says in disdain. “I mean, sure, he’s fine to look at, I guess, but he’s still, like, a generic white guy. Imagine being married to that for an entire lifetime.”

Fatin looks to Leah expectantly. “I’m sorry, do you expect me to have an opinion?” Leah asks. (She can’t fend off a smile when Fatin makes an indignant face at her.)

“Yes!”

“About who Dot would marry if she got the choice? Like good for her? I know I wouldn’t choose Jake Gyllenhaal –”

“Thank you,” Fatin cuts in. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

They start walking again. Leah figures they’re maybe fifteen minutes away from the water, if they continue at their current snail pace.

“So?” Fatin prompts. “Who would you choose?”

Leah laughs. “Yeah, I don’t have an answer ready for you. At all.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “There’s only one right answer here, Leah. You marry Elon Musk, take as much as you can in the divorce, and you’re set for life.”

Leah hums. “Okay, you’ve got a point.” She pauses. “But wait. You still have to marry him and probably fuck him, and that’s kinda gross.”

“No. You suck it up,” Fatin says. “You do it, and you just think about all the money you’re gonna have when it’s over.”

Leah doesn’t want to think about Elon Musk. Definitely doesn’t want to think about fucking him, but just thinking about him at all reminds her of Nora’s impression of Fatin back during the first week. It’s been ten days since Nora died. It’s still a sore subject for everyone. And Fatin doesn’t even know that Nora impersonated her in a way that now seems sort of unfair to Fatin, even if they didn’t know it at the time. (Well, Dot knew it was unfair. Dot didn’t join in, didn’t laugh. Dot defended Fatin as early as the first week on the island. Just something for Leah to think about. And honestly? Nora’s impression is still funny as fuck, as unfair to Fatin as it may be.)

“What would their couple name even be?” Fatin wonders aloud. “ _Jot_? _Dake_? _Jorothy_?”

“What?” Leah says.

“Dot and Jake Gyllenhaal. I’m kinda feeling Jorothy myself.”

“Please let it go,” Leah says. “This is, like, the worst conversation we could be having.”

“Not true at all,” Fatin replies. “We could be talking about sex, or more specifically, how much I miss having sex. Or just orgasms, I guess.”

“You’re right,” Leah says. “Please. Keep talking about Jake Gyllenhaal.”

“I mean, I guess his face is okay,” Fatin says. (Leah had kinda been hoping Fatin would just take the hint and talk about something unrelated to Jake Gyllenhaal or sex. Apparently not.) “But only when he has a beard.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You really don’t have a strong opinion about this, huh?” Fatin questions.

“Not at all.”

“Yeah, we would’ve never been friends if we hadn’t crash landed here together,” Fatin says (casually, in a very, like, _it’s no big deal_ sort of way).

“So you’re saying we’re friends now?” Leah questions. “Even though it would’ve never happened before.”

“I mean, yeah,” Fatin scoffs. “Come on. We’re all coming off this island as BFFs. Or I guess Toni and Shelby are coming off as girlfriends, but the point still stands. We’re all bonded for life or whatever.”

“Right. We bonded over the need to survive rather than over the important stuff, though. You know, like which celebrity it’s acceptable to want to marry.”

Fatin laughs so hard, she has to stop walking and lean into a tree for support. (Leah smiles to herself.) When she pulls it together, she points at Leah and says, “You know, we may have never become friends if this unfortunate tragedy hadn’t happened to us, but that would’ve been a real damn shame, Leah. You’re pretty fucking funny. I would’ve been missing out, and I never would’ve known it.”

“Was that a compliment?” Leah teases. “Because it kinda sounded like one.”

“Don’t make me regret it.”

They reach the waterfall, take care of business. (They talk as they’re collecting water, sure, but it must not be about anything remarkable, because Leah can’t remember later what they said.) A question starts to gnaw at Leah, but she doesn’t work up the courage to ask it until they’re walking back.

“So,” Leah says, trying to keep her tone light (and maybe slightly uninterested – at least, uninterested in the way of, like, _we’ve got nothing better to talk about so I might as well ask_ ). “How did you and Dot become friends out here anyway? Seems like it happened really fast, and no offense, but you two are, like, opposites.”

“Maybe that’s why,” Fatin muses. “And Shelby paired us together for that first icebreaker on the plane, remember? She had me from the moment she said _I’m not a lesbian, sorry to disappoint_.”

Leah cracks a smile when Fatin looks back at her, grinning. “What? You wanted to prove her wrong?” Leah jokes. (Well, she says it like it’s a joke. That doesn’t make it a joke.)

“Oh, no, it’s just her _cargo pants_ really contradicted what she was claiming, so. I was intrigued.” Fatin shrugs. “She was straightforward. Didn’t seem fake. Obviously had a sense of humor. Talking to Dot for, like, five minutes made me think maybe this whole _girl power_ bullshit retreat wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Look how that turned out,” Leah says flatly.

“Yeah, no shit. Still, it’d be a lot worse without Dot.”

(Leah has to concede that, just not for the same reason as Fatin. Dot’s the main reason they’re all still alive. She’s had her head screwed on straight since the second that plane hit the ocean, even when they were all so convinced rescue would be quick. But Fatin undoubtedly means it’d be a lot worse without Dot not because Dot works hard to keep them alive. Dot keeps Fatin sane, sort of the same way Fatin keeps Leah sane. And it really shouldn’t bother Leah that that’s how it is.)

“Yeah,” Leah says. “We’d all be dead without her.”

“God, I probably would’ve killed myself by now,” Fatin groans. “No offense. You’re great, Leah. But we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. And Shelby was a hardcore Bible banger at the beginning, and she was _way_ too optimistic. Rachel was a bitch most of the time. And so was Toni. Martha has always been sweet, but I don’t think I would’ve stuck around just for her, you know? We aren’t _that_ close. And Nora…I mean, we don’t have to go into that. Point is, without Dot, I would’ve offed myself right away.” Fatin pauses, looks back to make sure Leah’s still following along the path. (She is.) “And I’m not saying this to insult you,” Fatin says. “Or anyone else here, for that matter. But when we first got here, Dot was the only one who didn’t think I was a complete idiot. Or completely shallow or vain or useless. However you’d like to put it. And don’t bother to pretend you didn’t think I was all of those things at first. I’m not holding it against any of you. I get why you thought that, and I know I didn’t exactly pull my weight at first. But you asked why Dot and I became such fast friends. It’s because she saw _me_. Right away. I don’t fucking know how she did it, but she got me.”

Leah winces. “Yeah,” she mutters. “That’s fair.”

“I mean, you’re right,” Fatin says. “Dot and I don’t really have a lot in common on the surface. We might not be able to bond over, like, watching the same TV shows – or liking the same type of man, apparently. But it’s just, like, deeper than that.”

Leah nods. “It’s crazy, right? How you never would’ve known she existed if this horrible thing hadn’t happened.”

Fatin smiles. “Yeah. I guess it is kinda crazy. But to me it’s not as crazy as the fact that you and I literally went to the same school and could’ve been good friends but never would’ve bothered.”

“I’d take most of the blame for that, but why should I?” Leah jokes. “It’s not like you would’ve ever tried to talk to me, either, even if for a different reason.”

“Because I thought you were a weird art prude? Okay, but you thought I was a slut without any substance, so. I think you’re a little more to blame.”

They both grin at each other before they step onto the beach, rejoining the rest of the girls.

“Hey, that was fast,” Dot greets. She knocks her hand against Fatin’s arm. “You usually take forever on water duty.”

“You know, I can’t stop myself from staring at my reflection in the water,” Fatin says, rolling her eyes. Dot cackles, and Fatin grins, grabs onto her shoulder.

(“We should start boiling these,” Leah mutters, and Martha and Shelby come to help.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Shannon's crush on Jake Gyllenhaal for inspiring the island scene. As a lesbian, I have to say, not a bad choice. (Maybe I've seen a lot of Jake Gyllenhaal's films. Let's not get into it. Unless you also like Jake Gyllenhaal, then you should absolutely tell me your favorite movie of his in the comments. No one asked, but mine is probably Nocturnal Animals. Or Zodiac. Or Donnie Darko.)
> 
> You all have been absolutely fucking incredible. I love each and every one of you. Let me know what you think in the comments. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	20. 1

Leah’s eyes pop open, and this time, she remembers she’s in a hotel in Los Angeles. (She, thankfully, does not remember whatever she might’ve been dreaming about. She also doesn’t remember deciding to go to sleep. Last thing she remembers is giggling with Fatin at the stupid sitcom on TV.) Wait. Leah reaches for her stomach, winces when her fingertips touch the arm slung across her waist. (She doesn’t have to look back to know who it belongs to.) Then a moment later, there’s a loud banging on the door, and Leah startles just enough to cause Fatin to stir. (At least she pulls her arm back.)

“Hey! Wake up!” Dot shouts, still pounding on the door with her fist. “We’ve got a decision to make, so let’s go!”

Fatin groans, rolls onto her back, providing Leah with the perfect opportunity to escape from the bed and answer the door. Dot smiles widely, looks Leah over quickly. (Dot’s already dressed, in cargo pants of course, with her pink-streaked hair tied back.)

“What’s the rush?” Leah grunts.

“We’ve got three houses to choose between,” Dot tells her. Her eyes flick past Leah. “Is Fatin up?”

“I don’t see how she couldn’t be, with all that noise you were making,” Leah says. “You wanna come in?”

“Oh, no. Fatin’s grumpy in the morning,” Dot says. “I can wait until you’re both ready. Just thought we should get a move on.”

Dot returns across the hall, and Leah lets the door shut, shuffles back into the room to find Fatin still in her bed. “Dot wants us to get going,” Leah says.

“Fuck her.”

“Um? We’re supposed to buy a house, remember?” Leah says. “Dot’s trying to make that happen.”

“I’m not done sleeping.”

Leah doesn’t argue. She figures she’ll handle Fatin if she’s still sleeping when Leah’s done getting ready. Luckily, it doesn’t come to that, because another fifteen minutes of sleep seems to do it for Fatin, and she gets up on her own.

“Hey,” Fatin says as Leah finishes securing her belt around her waist. “You good?”

“Yeah?” Leah says. “Why?”

Fatin shrugs, clasps the watch on her wrist before starting to slide her rings back onto her fingers. “Just checking.”

Leah makes sure all her shit is packed, double checks the room for any shit they might’ve forgotten as Fatin finishes getting ready. They meet Dot and Shelby in the hall and head for the car as they discuss (argue over) which house is the best fit. It takes some time (and Dot has to seriously work to change Fatin’s mind), but they reach a consensus. They let the realtor know, and as Dot talks to (harasses) him with Fatin, Shelby approaches Leah.

“Hey,” Shelby says gently. She waits until Leah looks at her before she motions toward Fatin and asks, “How’d last night go?”

Leah hesitates. “Not bad? I mean, I think we’re okay.”

“Good. That’s good,” Shelby says. “You know, you had me and Dottie worried about you two for a minute there.”

Leah snorts. “Just for a minute?”

“Well,” Shelby says, cracking a small smile, “Dottie’s been stressing about this whole situation for the past year.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Trust me,” Shelby says. “She talks to Fatin on the phone almost every day, and your name usually comes up before long.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Leah asks.

Shelby shrugs. “You two were good friends. It’d be a shame for you to throw it away over something that can be fixed.”

“We fixed it,” Leah says. Shelby hums, briefly touches Leah’s arm, but Dot and Fatin rejoin them before she can say anything.

“So?” Shelby prompts.

“We’re gonna have ourselves a house, baby,” Dot says, grinning widely. “We need to tell the others!”

“I mean, technically it’s not ours yet,” Fatin reminds. “But we’re the Unsinkable Seven. We can’t _not_ get it.”

“Fatin told the realtor that she’ll cut his balls off if he doesn’t get us this house,” Dot says.

“I said it a little more nicely than that, okay?” Fatin says when she sees Shelby’s horrified look. “But this house is ours. You can count on it, so text your girlfriend.”

Shelby texts Toni and Martha, and Leah takes it upon herself to text Rachel the news. And then the rest of the day is kind of a blur, even if Dot and Fatin do most of the heavy lifting. (Leah thought Dot was harassing the realtor, but it turns out, Fatin’s even worse. And her mother’s a realtor, so…but Leah doesn’t dare to bring that up.)

“Being an adult is exhausting,” Leah complains once they’re seated in their restaurant (way too fancy, way too expensive, but they’re celebrating, so even Dot doesn’t complain).

“You know what’s more exhausting?” Dot says.

“Surviving on an island for three months?” Leah answers. They all laugh, and they laugh even harder when they realize the waiter overheard them and now has this ridiculous deer-in-headlights look on his face. (The poor guys spends the rest of the night pretending like he doesn’t know who they are, pretending like he isn’t pointing them out to the rest of the staff, pretending like he doesn’t stare at Fatin’s chest every time he comes back around to check on them, which is at least once every ten minutes.)

“Fatin,” Dot warns as Fatin’s scribbling her signature on the receipt.

“What?”

“Don’t even think about it.”

Fatin shrugs. “What? The waiter’s hot, and he’s obviously into me. I should leave him my number. Maybe it’ll be worth my time once we move our asses out here.”

“You wanna go out with the waiter?” Shelby questions.

Fatin scoffs. “ _Go out_? No. But I might want to fuck him. I don’t know. His eyes are nice.”

(His eyes are extremely blue. Leah also noticed. It’s hard not to.)

“His eyes _are_ really nice,” Dot concedes. She glances over at the receipt, at the way the pen still hovers over it as Fatin considers whether or not to leave her number for this stranger with beautiful blue eyes.

“But I don’t know,” Shelby says. “His eyes kind of remind me of Leah’s.”

Leah chose the wrong moment to try to finish off her water. She very obviously chokes, even if Fatin doesn’t outwardly react to Shelby’s comment. It takes Fatin a moment before she huffs then sets the pen down on the table without writing her number.

“Maybe you’re right,” Fatin says. “Let’s hope it’s his loss and not mine, right?”

“Please,” Dot says. “That guy was so squirrely once he figured out who we were. And all he did was stare at your chest all night! He won’t be good enough for you.”

“You know what? You’ve made a good point, Dorothy. Thank you.”

(“Are you okay?” Shelby asks Leah quietly as they’re walking out. “Because I’m sorry. It wasn’t my place to say that. I didn’t even think –”

“It’s okay,” Leah assures her. “And I’m fine.” She pauses. “His eyes are nicer than mine, though.”

Shelby laughs, shakes her head. “No. They really aren’t.”)

“You aren’t going to fall asleep behind the wheel, are you?” Dot questions, grabbing Fatin’s arm to stop her from getting into the driver’s seat. “Because if you think you’re going to have trouble staying focused, I should drive back.”

“I can’t tell if you’re trying to act like my mom or my wife,” Fatin says, brushing Dot’s hand off of her arm. “And while I appreciate the concern, I promise I’m not going to fall asleep within the next five hours, okay?”

Dot nods but suspiciously studies Fatin’s expression. “Leah!” Dot calls. “You want the front?”

“No,” Leah says (too quickly).

“Shelby?” Dot offers.

“It’s all yours, Dottie,” Shelby answers. “Enjoy trying to police the way Fatin drives.”

“Ugh, _no_ ,” Fatin whines. “Someone else sit up here with me!”

“Shut up. You love me,” Dot says. They get into the Escalade, and Dot sits up front with Fatin. “Pay attention.”

“God, I know how to drive, Dorothy!”

Dot snickers and shoves at Fatin’s arm playfully before she twists around to look at Leah and Shelby. “So, Leah,” Dot says. “Shelby and I have to catch our flight home tomorrow. You gonna escort us to the airport?”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together. “You mean, you need a ride? Haven’t you been staying with Fatin?”

“She means to ask if you want to come along for the ride,” Fatin says.

“Oh, I don’t want you to go out of your way to get me,” Leah says. “It’s okay –”

“You can just stay at Fatin’s tonight, right?” Dot questions.

“Um,” Leah says, but Fatin says, “It’s alright with me.”

( _Shit_.)

“It’s no pressure, though,” Shelby jumps in. “If you’d rather go home, me and Dottie understand.”

“No, it’s okay,” Leah says. “I can, um, spend the night, I guess.”

“Cool,” Dot says. So Leah has to text her parents to let them know she’s not coming home tonight after all, and her mother is way too thrilled that she’s spending time with Fatin again. (Leah let her parents assume that the social media pressure finally became too much, so that’s why she and Fatin drifted apart – which wasn’t a lie, but it obviously wasn’t the whole truth, either.) And even though Shelby is sitting right next to her, Leah texts her next.

**7:02 p.m.** _Why is Dot doing this to me?_

Leah watches Shelby pull her phone out, check it. Watches Shelby’s eyebrows pull together before she types out a response.

**Shelby, 7:03 p.m.** _I thought you and Fatin were good now?_

**7:03 p.m.** _Yeah we’re fine but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the night at her place. No offense_

**Shelby, 7:04 p.m.** _Dottie’s probably just trying to help. She must think this is a good idea._

**7:04 p.m.** _Well I don’t think it’s helpful_

Shelby looks at Leah then (and maybe that’s pity in her expression? Leah can’t tell exactly) and shrugs slightly. “I don’t know,” Shelby says, quietly enough to evade Fatin or Dot’s notice as they argue over the music.

(“I’m _not_ listening to country, so you better find something else right now, or I _will_ kill us,” Fatin threatens.

“Dude, chill,” Dot replies. “It’s one fucking song. I think you’ll live.”

“You wanted me to pay attention to the road? Well, I can’t when there’s shitty music coming out of my speakers.”

“It’s one song! And it’s not shitty. You’re shitty.”

“No, you’re shitty.”

“No, you are.”)

It’s a long drive. And it’s past midnight when they finally roll into Fatin’s driveway. (Fatin had no problem staying awake and fully alert. In fact, she’s still singing – badly – as she kills the engine and shakes Dot awake. Leah can’t help but to look over the cars at the disposal of the Jadmani family. The Audi’s still here, and so is Fatin’s mother’s car, but there is one vehicle that is noticeably absent.) Fatin pulls the trunk open and starts handing out bags to their respective owners before she hauls her own bag out.

“You really needed that much for a one night stay?” Dot questions.

“Don’t judge me. My over-packing is what saved all our asses, remember?” Fatin retorts. She slams the trunk shut then flashes Dot a smile. “I mean, apart from your survival skills, Dorothy.”

“Well, thanks for sharing some of the credit with me,” Dot says sarcastically.

“Oh, yeah, anytime.”

They laugh as Fatin unlocks the front door, leads them inside. She says something about not disturbing her brothers and leads them into the (completely decked out) basement. (The basement’s probably larger than both floors of Leah’s house combined. Leah’s been down here before, with the rest of the girls after their rescue, but her eyes still bounce from the leather furniture to the pool table to the flat screen to the vintage arcade games lined along one wall to the art decorating the other walls. It’s any kid’s fantasy.) Dot throws herself down on one of the couches, exhaling. (She looks as comfortable as ever. There’s no trace of uncertainty there, unlike how Leah feels.)

“I’ll be back,” Fatin announces. “Oh! Leah, just in case you forgot, the bathroom’s around the corner. You just have to pass through the theater and the bar and you’ll hit it.”

“Right,” Leah says. (Now she remembers. There’s another entire section to this basement.)

“Help yourself,” Fatin adds. She disappears upstairs (probably to get pillows and blankets and whatever, according to Dot).

“What’re you playing at?” Leah asks, locking her eyes onto Dot.

“Excuse me?” Dot says.

“You didn’t need me here,” Leah says. “We could’ve said goodbye outside of my house, and I would’ve seen you again in, what? Like, a month at the most? You know, when we all move our asses out to LA.”

“I just wanted to include you, Leah,” Dot says. “I swear. You could’ve said no.”

“It kinda felt like you wanted to force me to spend more time with Fatin.”

“You guys seem fine,” Dot points out. “Fatin said you’re fine. You stayed in the same room last night. So what’s the problem?”

(Leah doesn’t have an answer. She ends up rolling her eyes instead when she hears Fatin coming back down the stairs.)

“Dorothy, Jesus,” Fatin says. She throws a pillow straight at Dot’s chest. “Why haven’t you found anything for us to watch yet?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was in charge of handling our entertainment tonight,” Dot replies. “Throw me the remote.”

“No _Survivor_ , please,” Shelby requests. “And nothing that has Bear Grylls in it. Or how about no reality shows at all?”

“You got it,” Dot says. (Fatin tosses the remote her way, and Dot has no problem snatching it out of the air.) “I’m not really trying to have island-related nightmares tonight anyway.”

“Here,” Fatin says, offering Leah a pillow and a blanket. “Sleep where you want.”

Dot finds them a movie, and they all claim their spots on the furniture. (The leather’s comfortable, and there’s more than enough space for the four of them, between the sectional couch and the recliner.)

“This movie’s boring,” Fatin complains.

“What do you mean? It’s just getting interesting,” Dot replies.

“Maybe we should vote,” Leah says flatly.

“No. Definitely not,” Dot says. Ten minutes later, Dot’s snoring. (The movie is still boring.) Ten minutes after that, Shelby’s out, too. (And now Leah’s lying awake, alone with Fatin.)

“Can we change this?” Leah finally asks.

“I would,” Fatin replies, “but Dot’s lying on the remote, and I’m not digging my hand under her. She’ll probably wake up and accuse me of feeling her up, so. Feel free, but I’m not doing it.”

Leah grunts. So they’re stuck watching this shitty movie. Go figure. “You know,” Leah says after the silence stretches on a little too long to be comfortable, “I don’t really do the whole slumber party thing.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Fatin says. “But hey. Here you are.”

“Dot guilted me into it.”

Fatin scoffs. “She made you an offer, and you accepted it. We would’ve dropped you off at home if you wanted.”

“I felt like I didn’t have a choice, okay?”

“I thought we were good,” Fatin says.

“We are.”

“No. It’s still weird for you.”

Leah sighs, rubs at her face. (If she turns her head to the side, she can see Fatin on the opposite end of the sectional couch, laying parallel to her, albeit about ten feet away. Dot’s taking up the space perpendicular to them, still snoring. Leah’s almost positive Fatin is staring at her, but she refuses to look.) “It’s not weird for you?” Leah finally asks.

“I can let it go.”

Leah nods, lets her hand fall from her face. (Fatin’s definitely staring at her.) “So, let me get this straight. You were willing to sleep with that waiter just because he had nice eyes?” Leah asks.

Fatin laughs (maybe in surprise?). “No, not _just_ because he had nice eyes. He, like, fit my type to a T. Except for being so nervous.”

“It didn’t bother you that he stared at your chest every chance he got?” Leah questions.

“Nah. That’s how I knew he was into me. Come on.”

“Like every guy isn’t already into you.”

Fatin hums. “Not all of them.” Fatin pauses. “Shelby was right, though. His eyes were pretty close in color to yours.”

“Don’t even go there,” Leah mutters.

“Yours are prettier.”

(Leah would choke if that wouldn’t be so goddamn embarrassing.) “Fatin!”

Fatin giggles. ( _Giggles_.) “What? It’s true.”

“Let’s just – can we not?”

“You’re blushing,” Fatin teases. “I can’t see it, but I know it’s happening.”

“No, it’s not.” (It is.)

“You’re totally blushing.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do I need to get up and check?” Fatin challenges.

“Stay over there. Seriously. Do not get up.”

“Oh, relax. You’re no fun.” There’s another brief pause before Fatin says, “Okay, I can’t take this movie anymore. Back me up if Dot wakes up and accuses me of groping her, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Fatin gets the remote free without waking Dot. It lands on Leah’s stomach, scaring the shit out of her. “Your pick,” Fatin says. “Nothing shitty, please.”

“Can’t get much worse than this.”

*

The thought crosses her mind as she’s floating on a hunk of the plane wreckage in the ocean. In fact, it’s one of the first things that comes to her, once she gets past the initial shock of realizing their plane went down.

_What if I’m the only one who survived?_

(She doesn’t know how likely that is to be true. There were nine girls, including Leah, then the pilots and the flight attendant. If Leah survived and is relatively unharmed…well, there’s at least a decent chance she’s not the only one, right?)

Leah tries to remember names, faces, as she grips onto the hunk of metal for dear life. She draws a massive blank – in fact, everything after the first wave of turbulence is blank, but her struggle to remember faces (if not names) is something else. Probably related to shock? She doesn’t know. She just hopes to God she isn’t stranded out here alone. (It’s funny, because in a few hours, she’ll start to think maybe she would’ve been better off if she’d been alone, or if she’d simply died in the crash.)

It comes to her when she spots one of the other girls also floating on a piece of the plane. _Fatin Jadmani_. (Not the girl Leah’s staring at right now. But Fatin was on the plane, too. She’s the first one that comes back to Leah’s mind, obviously, because she’s the only girl Leah even sort of knows.) Leah can’t remember this girl’s name right now. She’s not sure if the girl just never said it or if she just wasn’t paying attention. (Leah definitely wasn’t paying attention, but she can’t remember if she was directly introduced to this girl. She just remembers she was overly energetic, but that’s gone now. Later, she learns her name is Jeanette. Even later than that, she’ll learn it’s not really Jeanette; it’s Linh Bach, and she was a grad student who got tangled up in Gretchen’s web, got manipulated into thinking this was a good idea.)

Jeanette’s barely conscious, clutching at her stomach and groaning. Leah sees the bruising, checks Jeanette’s pulse (tells her something about how if she was bleeding internally, her pulse would be shot – she thinks she remembers that from somewhere). Leah forgets about it shortly after, because they spot land nearby. She’s so relieved that they aren’t going to die out in the middle of the ocean from, like, dehydration, and Leah forgets about the concerning bruising. (She goes back over this moment after Jeanette dies, but no matter how much she analyzes it, she doesn’t know what they could’ve done even if they’d paid immediate attention to it. She doesn’t know how to handle internal bleeding out on an island where you can’t call 911 and wait for an ambulance to take you to a hospital. She learns later that Jeanette – Linh – could’ve been extracted by Gretchen immediately, or she could’ve backed out when she first got injured before she ever reached the island with the girls – since that was Gretchen’s defense. Gretchen says in court that Linh chose to proceed, that it wasn’t her fault that Linh died because she knew the risks, and she decided to take it. The jury doesn’t buy it.)

As Leah hauls them to shore – slowly, because she’s completely drained, and she’s dragging Jeanette along and struggling to keep both their heads above water – the faces of the other girls start to come back. First it’s the blonde with the obvious Texan accent. The one who was desperate for them to get to know each other and tried to drag Leah into it. The two friends; the girl in the basketball tank with her hair braided and the girl across from her, in the pink shirt. The sisters (and Leah only remembers that they’re sisters because she saw them arrive at the airport together, get dropped off by their parents), the one dressed in athletic wear and the other with the nose piercing. And there’s the girl in the cargo pants. Add in Fatin, and that’s all of them, Leah thinks. (Plus the flight attendant, plus the two pilots, but she doesn’t have high hopes for them. Leah’s pretty sure the plane took a nosedive into the ocean. The cockpit would’ve hit the water first.)

Leah learns Toni’s name first, mostly because the girl in the cargo pants screams it once Leah’s almost made it to shore with Jeanette. The rest of the names get thrown at her pretty quickly. Cargo pants girl is Dot, and she makes sure everyone knows it after Shelby calls her _Dottie_ instead. (Dot is short for Dorothy, and once Fatin finds that out, she doesn’t let it go.) It’s a miracle Leah’s brain stores the names away, because she can still barely breathe, and Dot’s doing CPR on Jeanette while everyone yells at her about doing it too quickly. (That should’ve been their first major hint to not take their eyes off Jeanette. They should’ve been more worried, should’ve watched her more closely. Not that they could’ve saved her life again. Not that they really could’ve done anything, but apparently, Jeanette could’ve called it in and saved herself. Maybe if they would’ve told her of the severity of the bruising, Linh Bach would’ve never died out there.)

Jeanette apologizes to Leah later, hugs her. Leah thinks nothing of it at the time. It’s not Jeanette’s fault that the plane went down. (It’s not Linh Bach’s fault, either, but if she’d spilled the beans on the experiment before dying, it might’ve saved Leah a lot of trouble down the line.) And so much happens on the first day; it’s the longest fucking day of Leah’s life so far, but it flies by, and it’s surprising how much of it sticks in her mind, even months, years, later.

At the same time that Fatin announces the phone is dead, Jeanette dies (and the bruising is so much worse than it was hours before, meaning Jeanette’s been bleeding internally for hours and no one caught it, and Jeanette didn’t tell them). And Leah doesn’t have a lot of experience with death – especially not like this, not death probably caused by blunt force trauma from a plane crash, not death on a deserted island, not the death of someone probably around her age. By the time they bury Jeanette and sing the one Pink song that immediately pops into Leah’s brain (because she lost the _fucking_ phone in the ocean), Leah has all their names nailed down.

(Fatin, Rachel, Dot, Nora, Martha, Shelby, Toni.)

They’re the Unsinkable Eight, and they don’t even know it yet. (They really don’t know that they’re going to end up the Unsinkable Seven by the time they leave, nearly three full months later. They don’t know rescue is a long ways out. They don’t know it’s an experiment.) They don’t know anything, except all they have is each other (and even knowledge of that is debatable on the first day). And by the time they’re playing Never Have I Ever in Jeanette’s honor, Leah realizes she hasn’t said a single damn word to Fatin all day. (And she knows Fatin knows who she is. They’d locked eyes earlier, and there was a flicker of recognition in Fatin’s eyes, a slight twitch of her mouth. But she didn’t say anything, and neither did Leah. They both just looked away.)

Never Have I Ever doesn’t change Leah’s preconceived notion of who Fatin is. (If anything, the game cements it in Leah’s mind. A threesome with two guys? Yeah, Fatin is exactly who Leah thinks she is.) Even their conversation after the game doesn’t completely change Leah’s mind. (Well, at least it shows her Fatin’s not as self-absorbed as Leah had assumed, and she’s not quite the basic rich bitch that Ian painted her as.) Fatin seeks her out, strikes up a conversation. Sure, it’s about sex, but it’s a conversation, and Fatin is nice and her smile is gentle (and her gaze is genuinely curious when Leah talks about _him_ ), and Leah doesn’t think she’s ever been, like, this physically close to Fatin. (Within arm’s reach.) Leah’s used to seeing Fatin from a distance. And it’s obvious that Fatin is pretty, from a distance, but up close – she’s kind of breathtaking, even after the longest and worst day of their lives.

(That’s not exactly the thought Leah wants to have right now – or maybe ever.) It’s nice to feel a little less alone, even if just for a few minutes, even if Leah consciously notices that Fatin’s gorgeous and then her mind won’t let it drop. Fatin’s from home, and that’s not enough to bond them for life – though the whole plane crash thing might be more than enough to do just that – but at least it’s something. When Fatin gets up, she holds both her hands out to Leah, that gentle smile still on her face. (Leah smiles back, subconsciously bites down on her lower lip.) Leah takes Fatin’s hands, and Fatin pulls her up with a little more force than Leah’s expecting, and Leah stumbles forward a bit. Fatin’s grip on Leah’s hands tightens, and she keeps them upright, even if Leah almost falling forward brings their faces (way) too close together. But Fatin laughs (and Leah does, too, trying to sound less nervous than she suddenly feels) and releases Leah’s hands to grab onto her shoulders instead.

“You good?” Fatin asks. “Have a little too much to drink, maybe?” she teases.

Leah rolls her eyes, bites her lip to try to fend off a smile. “One shot?”

“Hey, I don’t know. Maybe you’re an ultra-lightweight. Or maybe you’re just a little clumsy. No judgment, either way.”

“I’m fine.”

Fatin grins, nods, lets her hands slide off of Leah’s shoulders. They sleep close together as a group that night. (It’s sort of cold, even if they’re all bundled in Fatin’s thankfully dry clothing, even with the fire that Dot started for them.) Leah doesn’t know if Fatin deliberately chooses to lie down near her, doesn’t know if that’s something she should be overthinking. She shouldn’t be thinking about Fatin at all. There are thousands of other things she could think about. The plane crashing. The fact that she’s stranded on an island with seven strangers. Jeanette dying in front of her. (She could think about Jeff fucking Galanis, and she has, multiple times, but this island has been good at providing distractions so far, and her mind hasn’t been able to linger on him for long. That’ll change, once shit here starts to become her new normal. She hasn’t yet figured out that what he did to her was wrong, and not just because he left. She doesn’t know she’ll figure it out during the course of her unwanted stay on this island.) Instead, as Leah listens to one of the girls start to snore – maybe Dot – she thinks about the way Fatin effortlessly pulled her to her feet, steadied her. (Smiled at her.)

And nothing about that is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all. Just really. Thank you. I love you all. Let me know what you thought of the chapter, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	21. 16

“We’ll see you soon,” Shelby says. She grasps onto Leah’s shoulders, grins widely. “Oh my _gosh_ , I’m so excited! We’re all going to be living together!”

She pulls Leah in to hug her (for the third time), and Leah doesn’t resist, doesn’t pull back until Dot shouts, “Shelby, come on! The flight’s boarding. I’m not trying to miss it!”

“Have a safe flight,” Leah says.

“No kidding,” Shelby replies. She pauses, glances around. “Have a nice ride back with Fatin.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“You’ve got everything handled, right?” Dot asks, pointing at Fatin.

“Jesus, Dorothy, how many times do I have to say _yes_? I’ll take care of it all. Just pack all your shit up and get it shipped out to LA when I tell you to, okay? Now go.” Dot hugs Fatin (for the third time) then grabs Shelby’s arm and starts rushing toward their gate. Fatin turns to Leah and says, “Alright, time to go. I hate airports.”

“I’m not exactly eager to get back on a plane,” Leah replies. “I don’t know how the others do it.”

Fatin shrugs. “I mean, technically we never really crashed, so.”

(There was just crazy turbulence, then a blackout thanks to the drugs they were slipped, and the faked recording of the plane crash that traumatized them all a second time while they were on the island. Leah still remembers that recording _very_ fucking clearly. She thinks they all do.)

As they’re walking out of the airport, they pass by this guy that even Leah notices. If he’s not a model already, he probably should be. But Leah will only remember two things that are related to this guy when she’s sitting in the car ten minutes from now. One, the way Fatin’s jaw slackens (and the way her eyes widen) when she sees this guy. Two, his eyes are extremely fucking blue.

“Did you see that guy?” Fatin hisses once they’re more than out of earshot. “Oh my _God_.”

“Yeah, he was alright,” Leah mumbles.

“Ugh, this is, like, _the_ missed opportunity of a lifetime for me.”

“That guy was probably thirty,” Leah points out.

“And?”

Leah blinks. “You’d think we would’ve learned not to fuck thirty year olds by now.”

Fatin rolls her eyes, unlocks the car. “Fucking them is one thing. Falling in love with them is something else altogether, Leah.”

Leah tucks her hands beneath her thighs during the entire car ride (which is made unnecessarily long by all the traffic) so they don’t curl into fists. She shouldn’t be angry. Has no right to be angry. (And Fatin doesn’t seem to notice that Leah might be angry, because she’s too busy alternating between singing and bitching about traffic.)

It isn’t until they’re taking the ramp off the freeway that Fatin finally speaks (apart from singing or yelling at other drivers). “You’ve been awfully quiet,” Fatin comments.

Leah stares out the side window. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“Well, you look vaguely pissed off, so I think that’s a lie, Leah Rilke.”

“I have no reason to be angry,” Leah mutters.

“Sure. Like that’s ever stopped you before.”

“I’m just tired,” Leah lies.

Fatin glances over at her, exhales. “Are we good?” Fatin asks. “Like really? Because if we’re not, you should say something. Right now. Since I’m asking.”

“We’re fine.”

“Hmm. Okay. Well, then, I’m going to text you later, and I’m going to expect you to answer me, alright? Because after we close on the house, we’re gonna have to coordinate moving all our shit out there and getting Dot and Shelby –”

“Yeah, okay,” Leah cuts in. “Just let me know.”

“You’re sure we’re good?”

“Fatin! We’re good!”

“Okay, okay!”

“And you just passed my street.”

“Fuck, I knew that.” Fatin slams on the brakes, flips off the guy behind them when he honks, and drives backwards as Leah yells at her about how she should’ve just turned around up ahead. “We’re here,” Fatin announces. She flashes Leah a wide smile. “See you soon.”

And as much as Leah wants to be like _no, you won’t_ , she just nods curtly, grabs her bag, and heads inside. (“Yeah, it was fun, Mom. Yeah, we found a place. I don’t know exactly when we’re moving out there yet. Fatin said she’d let me know. Oh, God, please don’t cry. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m getting old. I’ll come back and visit. Yes, you can come see me once we’re all settled in. Yes, I promise.”) As Leah unpacks her bag, throws her dirty laundry into the hamper, her phone buzzes in her pocket. Leah grunts and pulls it out, stares at the screen.

**Fatin, 1:27 p.m.** _hey_

**Fatin, 1:27 p.m.** _guess we really haven’t texted in a while huh_

**1:28 p.m.** _No kidding_

**Fatin, 1:29 p.m.** _better think of something interesting to say then_

And time starts to speed up. Not literally. But Leah’s life gets busy in a different way than before. Dealing with closing on the house and packing up her life and getting slapped with a massive amount of money and carrying text conversations with Fatin again (plus the occasional phone call, but that’s usually only when something comes up about the house). It’s like the next thing Leah knows, she’s unloading boxes from the moving truck they’d rented and carrying them into the house with Dot and Shelby. (Fatin takes a lot of breaks, meaning she carries in one of her boxes then takes ten minutes to get back outside to grab another. And when they call her out on it, she just says, “You know, I gave up my dreams of living at 1600 Vine for you, so, I can take a few breaks.”)

“Well, this will have to do for now,” Shelby sighs. (They aren’t anywhere near finished. Nothing’s been unpacked, even though Fatin went around and opened all of her boxes to dig through her shit. They have no furniture yet, because Dot selected the wrong date for delivery, so that’s tomorrow’s problem. Except it’s also tonight’s problem, because they’re all going to be sleeping on the floor.) “We have to leave in five minutes,” Shelby informs. “So let’s get moving.”

Dot drives them to the airport instead of Fatin, thankfully. (Meaning Fatin has plenty of time to tease Shelby about seeing Toni again.) “You know,” Dot says, “I think we’re going to have to lay out some ground rules soon.”

“For what?” Fatin asks.

“For living together,” Dot replies. “Like how about no random guys in the house?”

“I second that,” Leah says from the backseat.

“Agreed,” Shelby adds.

“Fuck you guys,” Fatin scoffs. “How about no random guys in shared spaces? Otherwise you’ll give me no choice but to sneak guys in through my window. And that’ll be very hard considering it’s on the second floor.”

“Okay, then here’s a second rule,” Dot continues. “No banging anyone anywhere except in your own room.”

“Agreed,” Leah and Shelby say.

“Now you guys really are just attacking me,” Fatin says. “I think we should wait until Toni, Martha, and Rachel can all give their opinions on these proposed rules.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll agree,” Leah says. (And they do when the issue comes up later that night.)

“Remind me why I wanted to live with you guys again?” Fatin says.

“Because you love us,” Dot answers, and that seems to settle the matter. Martha and Toni are waiting for them when they arrive at the airport, though Rachel’s flight from New York hasn’t landed yet. Toni and Shelby have yet to say anything about their relationship to the public (and no one seems to ever catch onto the way those two always cling to each other or anything, and Leah’s only a little bit bitter about the fact that Twitter blew #Leatin way out of proportion yet the world can’t seem to see that #Shoni is going on right in front of them) so they settle for a hug in the middle of a busy airport and a few whispered words while Dot, Fatin, and Leah descend upon Martha.

(“We’re looking at transferring out here,” Martha assures them. “Toni just wants to make sure there’s a spot for her on the team, you know? But my mom is super excited about the idea of us all living together. And I’m definitely bringing Marcus.”)

As they hang out at the airport to wait for Rachel’s plane to land, Toni calls, “So, Fatin, who’ve you been doing?”

“Excuse me?” Fatin says (but she grins widely). “Don’t you mean _what_ have I been doing?”

“No. Not at all,” Toni says. (She ignores the elbow she takes to the ribs from Martha.)

“Who I _do_ is none of your business,” Fatin replies. She pauses. “Also I don’t remember any of their names, so.”

“Oh, so you and Dot aren’t banging yet then?” Toni questions.

“It’s not for a lack of trying,” Fatin answers, shooting Dot a pointed look. “Apparently Dorothy is straight on _and_ off the island. How boring.”

(Their conversation carries on as Leah’s jaw clenches and unclenches. The only person who seems to notice is Martha, who suddenly steals glances over at Leah every few seconds. Leah’s leg bounces incessantly, and she doesn’t stop until Fatin complains about how she’s shaking the entire bench.)

Leah’s the first one on her feet as she spots Rachel. Rachel lets go of her suitcase just in time to hug Leah back properly, and as Rachel’s occupied, Dot grabs the suitcase for her.

“Shit, Rachel, how much did you pack?” Dot asks. “I thought this was supposed to be, like, a weekend stay for you, man.”

“I thought it was my place, too,” Rachel replies. She pries Leah off of her, smiling, and moves to hug Martha next. “It’s not all my shit, but it’s enough to get me through the week while I wait for the rest of my shit to arrive.”

“Wait, you’re moving in _now_?” Leah exclaims.

Rachel shrugs. “Why not? Might as well start over for real now that we’re loaded.”

“Okay, but fair warning,” Dot says. “There’s no furniture in the house yet. I may have fucked up the dates for the delivery.”

“You? Fucking something up?” Rachel says. “I guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?”

(And as they leave the airport for their new home, it’s like everything clicks back into place. It doesn’t matter that fucking TMZ or whatever snapped photos of their reunion at the airport, or that Twitter’s going to light up with speculation about #Shoni and #Leachel and even the revival of #Leatin. There’s just something good about the way Leah’s smashed into the awful middle seat in the third row of the Escalade, between Rachel and Martha, as Toni tells them all about how her season’s going better than expected; she hasn’t even been suspended from the team yet.)

“Shit, you weren’t kidding,” Rachel says as she dumps her backpack to the floor in the entryway of the house. “No furniture.”

“And nothing’s unpacked,” Shelby adds, smiling (maybe nervously?). “We didn’t quite get that far.”

“Well,” Toni says, grabbing onto Shelby’s shoulders, “someone get some music going and let’s start going through all of your shit.”

Since there’s a total lack of furniture in this place (thanks, Dot), they focus on getting the kitchen stocked with all the shit Fatin bought (because of course Fatin gets to choose their silverware and their pots and pans and their dishes, and of course she chooses all high-end shit, because money has never been an object to her). They move onto the bathrooms next then split into their respective rooms to go through their own shit. (Toni helps Shelby. Martha helps Dot. Rachel helps Leah. And everyone’s afraid to see how much shit Fatin might have to unpack – and Fatin, naturally, claimed the largest bedroom for herself, and she won out over Toni and Shelby because _Toni isn’t even living out here yet, so fuck off_.)

“Fatin!” Rachel shouts from downstairs. “Hurry your ass up! We’re all starving!”

A few moments later, Fatin appears at the top of the stairs, frowning. “Look,” she says, pointing at everyone gathered at the bottom, “we all know very well what actual starvation feels like, and I know for a fact that you are not starving. I need, like, five more minutes to get ready.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “You said that five minutes ago, Fatin. And five minutes before that. We want to go eat!”

“Five minutes!”

Six minutes later, the group decides it’s Leah’s turn to try to draw Fatin out. (Dot failed. So did Rachel. Toni pushes Leah toward the stairs, tells her to, “Go get your girl down here,” and doesn’t seem to hear when Leah says, “She’s not my girl.”) Leah hurries up the stairs (still isn’t quite over how huge this place is) and locates Fatin’s room (only because her door is the only one currently wide open, apart from the hall bathroom – which none of them should need, since they all have their own personal bathrooms; it’s gonna take Leah forever to adjust to her new life).

Leah hesitates just outside of Fatin’s room, knocks her knuckles against the doorframe. “Fatin?” Leah says. “Are you okay?”

“They sent you to drag me out, right?” Fatin says. Leah takes that as permission to enter, and she does, eyes darting around all the boxes littering the floor.

“Sort of.”

“Well, I’m not ready,” Fatin says. She has a compact mirror in one hand, a tube of lipstick in the other.

“It’s just dinner,” Leah says. “You don’t have to –”

“And what do you think we’re doing after dinner?” Fatin asks.

“Coming back here?”

Fatin laughs. “So you didn’t overhear the plan to check out that nightclub afterwards? You know, the one that’s, like, basically within walking distance?”

Leah balks. (She does know about the nightclub. Remembers passing it while they were house hunting a few months back, because Fatin pointed it out to them as a pro of this house. But Leah certainly doesn’t know of any plans to go in it.) “Nightclub? Who agreed to that?”

Fatin shrugs. “Everyone except you, apparently.”

“Even Martha?”

“I may have told her I’d help her find a guy,” Fatin says. “And I totally will. Won’t be hard at all. Anyway, I need some more time to finish up so I can also find _myself_ a guy, so kindly tell everyone else to fuck off for a few, okay?”

(Leah doesn’t say that Fatin doesn’t need to try in order to land a man – or anyone she wants. Leah swallows down whatever negative feeling is rising in her throat, swallows down any bitchy thing she could say, swallows down the feeling that she completely, 100% missed her chance a year ago because she gave up on Fatin instead of trying harder.)

Leah goes back downstairs, says, “She needs a few more minutes.”

“Come _on_ , Rilke!” Rachel complains.

“Just go,” Leah tells them. She snatches the keys to the Escalade off the counter, throws them to Dot. “We’ll meet you there.”

Dot eyes Leah warily but nods then motions for everyone else to follow her. Leah sits on the counter (which she’d probably do anyway even if there was actual furniture for her to sit on) and waits. It’s another ten minutes (at least) before Fatin comes down the stairs, and she stops in surprise at the bottom.

“Where is everyone?” Fatin asks. She spots Leah sitting on the counter, phone in her hand (Twitter open, because Ian texted her about the resurgence of #Leatin as well as the emerging #Shoni and #Leachel). “Did they leave us?” Fatin demands. “Those bitches –”

“I told them to go,” Leah cuts in. She slides off the counter, pockets her phone, and throws Fatin’s key ring at her. Fatin, to her credit, catches the keys easily, even if she looks confused. “We’ll just take the Audi and meet them there,” Leah says. “Duh.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Fatin’s lips. “Don’t say _duh_ to me,” she teases. “Wait. Before we go, since there aren’t any hungry women trying to rush me, how do I look?”

Well, since she asked, Leah gives herself permission to indulge, to let her eyes trail from Fatin’s face down to her shoes then back up. (And she looks stunning – no, absolutely fucking gorgeous – but when doesn’t she? Fatin could make wearing a garbage bag look good.) Yeah, Fatin’s trying to fuck someone tonight. Between the heels and the dress and the hoop earrings and her flawlessly applied makeup, Fatin’s on a mission.

“You look great,” Leah finally says.

“Great? That’s it?” Fatin presses.

“Hot,” Leah corrects. (She keeps her voice as neutral as she can, and through sheer willpower her voice – and her hands – do not shake. In fact, she almost sounds bored. Maybe she could win an Emmy someday, if she ever went into acting.)

“Okay, but like, just _hot_ or, like, fuckable?”

“God, please never say that again.”

Fatin snickers, locks the front door behind them. “Well, your face got all red, so I’m going with fuckable.”

“We shouldn’t talk about fucking,” Leah grumbles. (They may be on better terms than they were on when they didn’t speak for an entire year, or even just when they went house hunting a couple months back, but Leah’s been pretty clear about not wanting to hear about Fatin’s escapades.)

“Like, each other or anyone?”

“Both.”

“Gotcha,” Fatin says. She pauses beside the Audi then holds the keys out. “Wanna drive? It’ll make you feel better.”

*

“Guys, I think I’m actually in love with Marcus.”

“No, Marty, you’re just high,” Toni replies. (It’s early in the day, shortly after Martha accidentally eats three edibles when they’re all – minus Shelby – just starting to join her. Leah hasn’t kissed Fatin yet, doesn’t even know that she’s going to.)

“No, no, hear me out,” Martha insists. She slaps her hand onto Marcus’s chest, wearing a solemn expression that causes the rest of the girls to start giggling. “He’s the perfect man. I mean, I get to make everything about him up, but he’s perfect. I’m going to marry him someday when we get out of here.”

“Martha,” Fatin says. “There’s no need. We’ll find you a real, completely alive man, and he may not be totally perfect, but we’ll find you one that’s, like, as close as anyone can get to perfect, okay?”

Martha blinks. “He’s going to have to be okay with me dating Marcus on the side, then.”

That sends everyone into hysterics, though Martha can’t seem to figure out what’s so funny. Fatin pulls it together faster than everyone else and manages to ask, “Martha, honey, what do you want in a man?”

“What do I want _in_ him? Like…I don’t know how to answer that. All the correct organs, I hope?”

(Everyone laughs harder, except Fatin, since she’s now determined to get a real answer out of Martha. Leah watches Fatin curiously, unable to figure out why Fatin’s taking this so seriously.)

“Martha,” Fatin says. “What do you want him to _be_ like?”

“Oh! Why didn’t you just say that?” Martha says.

(“She kinda did, Marty.”)

“He has to love animals,” Martha says. “Marcus loves animals, and animals love him.”

(“Yeah, they love him _too_ much,” Dot points out.)

“I want to bump into him on our way to a science class, and it’ll be love at first sight,” Martha says.

“Yeah, sweetie, I don’t know if I can make that happen,” Fatin says. “I was thinking more like do you like fuckboys or nerds or what?”

Martha shrugs even though she’s lying down in the sand (and halfway on top of Marcus). “I don’t really care, I guess,” she says. “As long as he’s considerate of other people’s feelings. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt if he wore glasses, but that’s not a deal breaker.”

“You know what _is_ a deal breaker?” Dot pipes up. “Allergies. Nope. If you’re ever on, like, a survival show together, you’ll totally lose if your partner has allergies. Wait, sorry Shelby –” She cuts herself off when she realizes Shelby isn’t there. (Frankly, who knows where she is? And as the edibles really start kicking in, no one else seems to remember her absence for the time being.)

“I don’t care if he has allergies,” Martha dismisses. “But I guess being a fuckboy is a deal breaker. Fuckboys aren’t nice.”

“But fuckboys are _so hot_ ,” Fatin groans.

“So is that your type then?” Leah questions. “Just full-on fuckboy?”

“I mean, I won’t turn a guy down for being a fuckboy,” Fatin says. “It’s not like I’m gonna try to tie myself to him forever anyway.”

“Marcus was a fuckboy, but then he met me and he changed,” Martha says (very seriously) and they all start laughing again.

“Wait, so what _is_ your type, Fatin?” Dot asks.

Fatin shrugs. “I don’t have one. I like to keep my options open. I will say, though, I’m a sucker for blue eyes.”

Dot smirks. “You know,” she says, pointing a finger at Leah. “Leah’s got some of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“Ugh, I _know_ ,” Fatin says. “Leah, your eyes are drop-dead gorgeous.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Leah snorts. (If the edibles didn’t just really start to hit a few minutes before, this conversation would make Leah terribly uncomfortable.) “Don’t flatter me.”

“Hey, can my perfect man have Leah’s eyes?” Martha asks.

“Sure,” Fatin says, “but I don’t think I can find you a real man with eyes like Leah’s.”

“Now that’s a tragedy,” Dot says.

(“Fuck off,” Leah repeats, but she’s laughing so hard, she barely gets the words out.)

“So you want a guy with gorgeous eyes?” Fatin says. “We’ll make it happen. You know, when we get out of here.”

“And that should be soon,” Toni reminds, shaking Martha’s shoulder. “We’re going home!”

(“Do you think Marcus has pretty eyes?” Martha asks, and Toni just says, “Marty, you’re so high right now. I wish I had my phone so I could film this.”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've got back-to-back midterms the next two days. The chapters will still be put up. It's just possible it'll take me longer to respond to comments than usual. But please, leave me your thoughts. I love reading them. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	22. 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is up early because I don't want to deal with putting it up tomorrow (midterm first thing in the morning, bb) or risk forgetting to put it up at all.

Driving _does_ make Leah feel (marginally) better. Once the fear of destroying an extremely expensive car passes, it’s kind of exhilarating. (And Ian’s gonna be so jealous.) Fatin seems completely unconcerned about the idea of Leah totaling the Audi as she examines her makeup in the mirror. (They could buy a hundred more Audis if they really wanted to, thanks to that settlement money.) They meet their friends at the restaurant, and dinner is pleasant, even if Leah’s dreading setting foot in that nightclub afterwards. (But she has the keys to the Audi in her pocket, so if she really wanted to, she could just go home. Maybe Rachel would even come with her and watch Netflix with her all night or something.)

Martha, frankly, is the most excited out of them all. Even more excited than Fatin, and Fatin is for sure getting some tonight. (At least, that’s what Dot says right after she says Fatin _looks hot as fuck_ , and Leah immediately shoves a forkful of salad into her mouth.)

“Hey,” Toni says sharply, pointing her knife at Fatin from across the table. “No fuckboys, okay? Only the best for my Marty.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “I will find someone _amazing_ , believe me. It’s what our Martha here deserves.”

“You know, maybe I should look for a man,” Dot muses. “Now that I’m a free woman. I should take a page out of your book, Fatin.”

Fatin gasps. “Oh my _God_ , I’m, like, a role model now.”

(Maybe Leah should consider finding someone at the club instead of returning home to watch something mindless on Netflix all night. And while she’s distracted, everyone else decides that she’s one of two designated drivers tonight.)

“Wait, what?” Leah says dumbly. “Did you just –?”

“Yep,” Dot says. “It’s you and Rachel tonight, so keep those keys safe.” (Dot passes the keys to the Escalade to Rachel, and it’s so lucky that Leah already has the keys to the Audi, isn’t it?)

“But we’re leaving by two,” Rachel warns. “I don’t care what any of you say. I’ll leave your ass behind.”

(“It’s not that far of a walk,” Toni whispers to Shelby.)

“I’ve got it, guys,” Fatin announces as she slaps her credit card down on the table.

“Please,” Dot snorts. “It’s less impressive when literally any of us could do the same thing now.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Fatin replies. As soon as she gets her credit card back from the waiter, she stands and grabs Leah’s arm. “Come on. You’re my ride.”

(“And we’re allowing Leah and Fatin to be alone after everything because…?” Toni questions, right before Leah’s out of earshot. Leah glances over her shoulder in time to see Rachel tell her off.)

“Hey, um, I’m with Rachel,” Leah says. (Fatin’s still holding onto her arm.) “We’re leaving at two at the latest.”

“Why?” Fatin scoffs. “What’ve you got to do tonight?”

“Not stay in a club until they kick us out? And maybe I’d actually like to get to sleep before the sun comes up?”

“You’re no fun.”

“You know, the last time I tried to have fun,” Leah says, stopping as they both get into the Audi, “we ended up not talking for a year.”

“Fair point,” Fatin concedes. “But that’s over now, right? And we’re good, so. Loosen up.”

“I can’t. You all made me a designated driver.”

“You can have a drink or two when we get there, and you’ll be fine by the time we leave,” Fatin says, rolling her eyes. “You can help me find a suitable man for Martha.”

And that’s the first thing they do. They start looking for a man for Martha, even as Fatin’s eyes wander to men that Leah knows she’s considering for herself. (Leah would place money on which man Fatin will select. She already knows. There’s a tall guy with insanely blue eyes that’s watching them as they make their way around, and Leah knows that Fatin knows she has his attention. Fatin doesn’t say anything about him to Leah, maybe figures it’s for the best that they don’t talk about this stuff.)

“Him,” Fatin says, nodding toward a guy grabbing a drink for himself at the bar.

“We don’t know anything about him,” Leah says. (Her mind flicks back to that one day on the island when they were all high, when Martha told them what she was looking for.) “Do you think he likes animals?”

Fatin snorts into her drink, playfully punches Leah in the arm. “Go ask him.” And she shoves Leah in his direction before she can argue.

“Um, hey?” Leah says, and the guy looks over at her. “So my friend wanted to know if you like animals?”

His eyebrows raise, but he smiles and nods. “Your friend?”

Leah realizes she shouldn’t point to Fatin, so instead her eyes seek out Martha on the dancefloor, and she points Martha out to this random guy. “She likes guys that like animals,” Leah says. “And you look like a guy that maybe…I’m so sorry,” Leah blurts. “This is, like, super weird.”

“It is,” he agrees. He takes a sip of his drink, offers his hand to Leah. “I’m Mark, and I definitely like animals.”

Leah almost chokes. “Mark?” she says. (She shakes his hand.)

“Yeah. Don’t tell me that’s your name, too.”

“It’s not,” Leah says quickly. “My name doesn’t matter, but yours is perfect. My friend’s name is Martha. Please go dance with her.” She’s about to give Mark a nudge in Martha’s direction, but he’s already headed that way. (And Mark has nice eyes. And a nice ass. Martha should be pleased.) As Leah watches Mark go to ask Martha to dance, Fatin appears at her side, scaring the shit out of her.

“Nice job, Rilke,” Fatin praises. “I don’t know how you did it –”

“That guy’s name is Mark.”

Fatin busts out laughing, grabs onto Leah’s shoulder for support. (Fatin’s heels give her a couple inches on Leah, and Leah suddenly remembers how much she hates that.) “Oh, that’s fucking perfect.”

“And he said he likes animals,” Leah says. “I don’t think we could’ve done much better than that.”

Fatin hums, nods her approval. (She finishes off her drink, turns around to get another one. Maybe the bouncer should’ve scrutinized all of their very fake IDs a little harder. Maybe he would’ve realized he’s dealing with the Unsinkable Seven, all of whom are only eighteen.) “I think our Martha’s gonna be happy tonight,” Fatin says. “Mark is hot.”

“He’s got a nice ass,” Leah agrees. “Nice eyes.”

“Blue?”

“Green,” Leah says.

“Ah, well, as long as Martha likes him,” Fatin replies. “I don’t know if she’ll ever get over Marcus, though.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Leah says. “She said she’ll bring him out here once she convinces Toni to transfer. Or over the summer, at least.”

Fatin nods. “Well, I’m gonna go,” she informs Leah. “The guy with the nice eyes is still staring at me, so I think it’s time to make a move.”

Leah grunts. She has nothing to say to that, just slips away from Fatin and joins Rachel and Dot on the dancefloor. And even though Leah’s sober, she finds a way to have fun. (Mostly because Rachel is also sober, but she’s still busting out her worst dance moves in an attempt to distract Toni and Shelby so they won’t keep grinding all up on each other.) Dot’s just drunk enough to think that she should try to hit on the hot bartender, and Rachel has to physically stop her from going over there. Toni and Shelby don’t get their act together until Martha grabs onto Toni’s shoulder, sometime after midnight (after at least a couple hours of dancing, minus the breaks they keep taking to get drinks – in Leah’s and Rachel’s cases, sadly, just water).

“Hey,” Martha says over the music. She jabs her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m going home with Mark, so don’t wait up.”

Toni’s eyes widen, and before she can say anything, Martha giggles and grabs Mark’s hand, tugs him toward the exit. “What just happened?” Toni asks.

“I think Martha’s getting some tonight,” Dot shouts. She cheers, splashes some of her drink onto her shirt, then wrestles with Rachel over the glass when Rachel tells Dot she’s cutting her off.

(“Hey! I only have one hand. Stop trying to fight me and give me the fucking glass.”

“Not fair,” Dot complains. “You don’t get to play the one-hand card.”)

“If Marty gets hurt,” Toni threatens, pointing a finger at Leah, but Shelby grabs onto her hand, lowers it for her, and Toni softens as Shelby smiles at her.

“Let Martha have her fun,” Shelby says. “If anything, you should be thanking Leah.”

Toni rolls her eyes, but Leah says, “Fatin found him, anyway. I guess she should get the credit.”

“Speaking of, where is Fatin?” Shelby asks. As Rachel and Dot continue to scuffle over Dot’s mostly empty glass, Leah, Toni, and Shelby scan the crowd for any sign of Fatin.

“She couldn’t have left, right?” Leah asks. “I mean, I have the keys.”

“Unless she went with someone,” Toni points out. “Or walked.”

“Without telling us?” Leah exclaims. She pulls out her phone, just to see if Fatin would’ve thought to text her. Shelby and Toni check theirs, too, but they all come up empty. Leah has no problem swiping Dot’s phone from her back pocket as Rachel distracts her, but even Dot doesn’t have a text from Fatin. Leah sends Fatin a text (from her own phone) to ask her where she’s at, but when five minutes go by without a response, Leah tells Toni and Shelby, “I’ll check the bathroom. Just to be sure, but if she isn’t there…I don’t know what else to do.”

“Okay, let us know,” Shelby says, touching her hand to Leah’s arm. (Then she turns back to Toni, and they’re dancing again, and Leah thinks that she – once again – is the only one truly concerned about Fatin completely disappearing without warning.) Leah pushes her way through bodies to reach the back of the club and throws the door to the women’s restroom open without thinking twice, without anticipating immediately seeing Fatin, attached by the lips to the tall guy with the blue eyes. (She definitely didn’t need to see his hands on her ass.) His hands lift when he realizes someone has entered the restroom, but Fatin doesn’t stop kissing him.

“Of course,” Leah spits. “I shouldn’t have bothered to worry.”

Now Fatin jumps back, at least has the decency to look flustered. “Leah!” Fatin says. Leah grabs the door handle as the guy clears his throat, runs his fingers through his hair, stares anywhere but in Leah’s direction. “Leah, wait,” Fatin pleads. She catches Leah’s wrist in her hand, and Leah can’t break her grasp, ends up pulling her out into the hallway with her, leaving the guy forgotten in the women’s restroom.

“What?” Leah hisses. Now she manages to break Fatin’s grasp on her wrist, watches Fatin falter, fail to come up with something to say.

“What’re you getting so upset about?” Fatin asks. (Leah can’t tell how drunk she might be. Maybe not stumbling, unable to keep her balance drunk, but still drunk.)

“You disappeared on us. _Again_.”

“You knew what I was trying to do,” Fatin accuses. “Sorry for not fucking him in the middle of the dancefloor.”

“All you had to do was respond to your fucking phone.”

“Well, I was kinda occupied. I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need you all to worry about me or my whereabouts.”

“Except you do,” Leah says. “We’re kinda all you have out here.”

“Okay, well, I haven’t had an orgasm in, like, two weeks,” Fatin says. “And I know it’s not anywhere close to my three month record, but still, that’s way too long. And now you’ve just effectively cockblocked me, and for what?”

“You know what? Fuck you. Next time you disappear, I’ll just leave without you.”

“I’ve got another hour and a half before you’re allowed to leave.”

“Oh yeah? I’m leaving right now. How about that?” Leah challenges. “I have the keys, so what’re you going to do? Might want to make sure Rachel knows you’re hitching a ride with her.”

As a group of people enter the hallway, likely to reach the restrooms, Fatin grabs a fistful of Leah’s shirt and stops her from walking away. “No,” Fatin says. “You don’t get to do this.”

“I don’t get to do _what_?” Leah counters. “Leave?”

“Walk away.”

“Why not? I obviously shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I’m lucky I didn’t walk in while you were fucking that guy in a public restroom. Wouldn’t have needed to see _that_.” (A few of the people from the group lingering in the hall behind them glance over curiously.) Leah tries to walk away again, finds that she can’t because Fatin’s still holding a fistful of her shirt.

“God, what’s your problem?” Fatin whines. “It’s not like you don’t know –”

“That doesn’t mean I want to see it!”

“And you can barely handle hearing about it. So what’s –?” Fatin cuts herself off, eyes widen. “I thought we sorted all that out.”

Leah breaks Fatin’s hold on her shirt, does walk away this time. Fatin rushes after her, shoving people out of her way in an attempt to reach Leah before Leah reaches the exit. And she does reach her. Right in front of the bar, Fatin grasps onto the back of Leah’s shirt, yanks her to a stop.

“Stop walking away,” Fatin orders.

“You’re drunk, Fatin,” Leah replies. “Let me go.”

Fatin flinches like she’s been slapped, then her jaw clenches. “No. And maybe I’m drunk, but I’m not stupid.”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s this about?” Leah demands.

“You’re jealous,” Fatin says. “Don’t even deny it. If you would’ve found me in that bathroom alone, we wouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“Let go of my shirt,” Leah says through her teeth. So Fatin lets go of her shirt and grabs onto her hand instead, stops her from attempting to flee yet again.

“Stop trying to run,” Fatin says. “Why can’t we just talk about it?”

“Because we _did_ ,” Leah says, and she shoves at Fatin’s chest with both hands, hard, breaking Fatin’s hold on her for good. “And we missed our fucking chance, okay? But I don’t need you rubbing it in my fucking face all the time.”

Fatin presses her lips together, nods. “So you really are jealous, Rilke, huh?”

(Leah would be lying if she said she didn’t at least consider punching Fatin, but Leah’s sober and Fatin isn’t, and that would be unfair to say the least. Maybe not though. Fatin could probably still lay Leah out, drunk or not. But a second later, Leah thinks maybe she really doesn’t want to punch Fatin; she kind of would really rather kiss her, but she knows that’s not happening. Not here. Probably not anywhere, ever again. They’ve reconstructed a bare bones friendship over the last few months, and here Leah is, trying to blow it all up.)

“Fuck you,” Leah spits. (And it’s not lost on her, how one of the last times she said those exact words to Fatin, they ended up almost-but-not-quite fucking.) “How can you even –” Leah’s voice breaks, and she’s not sure Fatin’s able to hear her over all of the noise, “how could you _not_ know?”

“Leah, I can’t – I mean, we can’t –” and Fatin shrugs instead of finishing her sentence. Leah bites down on the inside of her cheek, refusing to cry – especially in a public place, especially anywhere people can see. “I don’t know what to say.”

Leah nods, inhales sharply, pushes one hand into her hair. “Go,” she tells Fatin, motioning toward the bathroom with her free hand. “Go find your man. I’ll be waiting in the car whenever you’re ready to go.”

“Leah –”

“Just go,” Leah insists. “Get away from me.”

Fatin watches her leave. (And so does Shelby, apparently, because Leah gets a text from her right after she steps outside, and Leah just tells her not to worry, that she’s going to wait in the car, that nothing happened with Fatin.)

**Shelby, 12:48 a.m.** _Are you sure? Toni and I can make sure Rachel waits for Fatin if you want to head home._

**12:49 a.m.** _It’s fine I’m just tired_

Leah gets behind the wheel of the Audi, locks the doors. Her heart hammers in her throat, and her head spins even though she’s as sober as can be. She drops her phone and the keys into her lap, mostly because her hands are shaking too hard for her to keep ahold of them. She grasps onto the steering wheel in an attempt to get the shaking to stop, rests her forehead against it for good measure, squeezes her eyes shut. (She wants to scream. Almost does. She just barely suppresses it.) Leah doesn’t know how long she stays like that, just trying to keep breathing without hyperventilating. (Trying not to think about Fatin, about what – _who_ – she’s doing right now. Trying not to think about how she let herself rekindle a friendship with a girl she knew could only hurt her. Leah knew it’d all come back, knew she should’ve resisted Dot and Shelby’s plan to move them all in together harder than she did. If Fatin liked her a year ago and couldn’t handle it then, what’s a year apart going to do? It certainly didn’t bring them any closer, and now being around Fatin, seeing her go after someone else...it might as well be torture.)

Leah’s phone buzzes incessantly on her thigh, and she finally lifts her head and looks down at it. It’s Shelby, _calling_ her. Leah’s eyebrows pull together, but she answers the call with a wary, “Hello?”

“Leah.” It’s not Shelby. It’s very obviously Toni on the other end. (Her voice is kind of unmistakable, especially compared to Shelby’s.)

“Toni? Why are you – where’s Shelby?”

“Just get in here.”

And Toni hangs up.

*

Leave it to Fatin to rush into the ocean to try to reclaim the shit that it took from her. She must be trying to fucking drown, and for what? Her fucking Gucci sweats? Leah doesn’t think, just splashes out there and grabs onto Fatin’s arm.

“Come on!” Leah shouts.

“It took my fucking shit!” Fatin says in disbelief. She clings to half of her suitcase, filled with some random articles of clothing and water.

“It’s not important,” Leah insists, pulling at Fatin’s arm. “Let it go. Come on.”

Leah manages to drag Fatin closer to…the new shore? Jesus Christ, the tide really came in. Way farther than ever before. (Their entire camp has been decimated. Dot’s running around, salvaging what she can without risking getting pulled out by the tide. Leah’s vaguely aware of Rachel going after the black box first, then after Nora. Toni’s hauling Martha toward dry land – basically to the edge of the woods – with Shelby, and though Toni doesn’t seem thrilled about this development, she lets it happen since Martha’s still pretty sick.) Leah’s still out of it, still stunned from being woken up by choking on a mouthful of saltwater as the tide rushed over her – and everyone else. She keeps holding onto Fatin’s arm, standing in knee deep water even though this is where their camp had been before.

“What the fuck?” Fatin says breathlessly. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I don’t – I don’t know,” Leah says. Where should they go? The ocean swallowed their camp. Leah’s not thrilled with the idea of sitting in the woods when sunrise is still at least an hour away. (More than an hour away, Leah discovers when she checks the watch on Fatin’s wrist and it tells her it’s only 3:31 in the morning.) She looks over to Toni, Martha, and Shelby, since they’re the closest, and Toni seems to be dragging Martha toward the woods. Dot’s still grabbing what she can out of the water around them. “Let’s help Dot,” Leah decides. “Just – don’t go so far out again, okay?”

“Yeah,” Fatin agrees. They scrape together what they can as Rachel and Nora scream at each other over how Rachel abandoned her in favor of the black box, and no one’s eager to get in the middle of that. Dot snags random pieces of clothing out of the water, throws it all in a pile at the edge of the woods. They only give up when the sun first starts to come up, as the water finally starts to recede, leaving the ruins of their camp visible. With the tide safely out of the way, the exhaustion hits all at once, and Leah collapses to the sand. Fatin sits next to her. And she holds up her toothbrush. Leah scoffs, rolls her eyes, as Fatin grins. “I saved it.”

“You’re the worst,” Leah says. “That’s why you jumped into a rip current? For your fucking toothbrush?”

“Don’t judge me. You kept that book of yours for how long?”

Fair point.

“How the fuck could this happen?” Leah mutters. Her eyes seek out Shelby as she finally leaves Martha (and Toni’s) side to check on Nora. (Nora’s still understandably shaken by almost being left for dead by Rachel.)

“Bad luck?” Fatin guesses. Her eyes examine the side of Leah’s face. (She knows where Leah’s looking, knows what Leah’s thinking, somehow.) “Shelby didn’t make the tide steal all our shit,” Fatin says, and it’s half a joke, but she’s also trying to gauge how Leah’s going to react.

“I know,” Leah says. She rubs at her eyes, exhaling.

“You good?”

“Just fucking tired,” Leah answers.

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna be ready to talk about this anytime soon,” Fatin says softly. When Leah looks over at her, Fatin just pats her thighs, and Leah drags herself over, lets her head fall into Fatin’s lap. “I’ll wake you if shit goes down,” Fatin promises. Leah grunts, already half asleep. Shit doesn’t go down for at least two hours, because that’s how long Leah’s nap lasts. When her eyes pop open, it’s quiet (meaning she doesn’t hear any voices) and her head’s still in Fatin’s lap, one of Fatin’s hands carefully working its way through Leah’s hair.

“You’re still here?” Leah mumbles.

“Where was I gonna go?” Fatin asks. “Everyone else has just been sitting on their asses, too. Besides, I managed to untangle some of these knots in your hair, so I think that counts as a win for today.”

Leah laughs quietly, tiredly, her cheek still pressed against Fatin’s thigh. She lets her eyes close again, lets herself enjoy the simple sensation of Fatin gently combing her fingers through her hair. Leah doesn’t fall asleep again, even though she gets close. The others finally start talking to each other. Well, Toni and Martha start talking, and Shelby’s voice joins the mix with Nora’s a few minutes later, then Rachel’s talking to Dot, and the arguments about the tide begin.

(And Leah, reluctantly, lifts her head from Fatin’s lap.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Feel free to shoot me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight if you'd like. You've all been so amazing. I am so grateful for you all. I'm sounding gay as hell right now, so ANYWAY I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you Wednesday for the next one.


	23. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dropping this one early, too. You can thank my shitty exam schedule for that lol. Hope you enjoy it.

Leah takes a moment to collect herself then gets out of the Audi. She pockets the keys and her phone, inhales deeply, braces herself for whatever she might find as she reenters the club (after the bouncer checks her fake ID again and clears her). She spots Toni first, since Toni seems to be waiting for her. Toni has no qualms about knocking people aside to reach Leah.

“What’s going on?” Leah asks.

Toni hesitates. “Dude, are you okay?”

“I’m fucking fine. Why did you call me in here?”

Toni shakes her head, exhaling. “Man, I don’t know what happened, and it’s none of my business, but Fatin is – after you left, she hit the bar and only stopped because of Shelby, but Fatin sure as hell isn’t happy about it. She’s still trying to get the bartender to serve her.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Leah questions. “Where’s Dot?”

“Rachel’s dealing with her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dude,” Toni snorts. “Dot’s drunk as fuck, so she’s not going to be wrangling Fatin anytime soon. So please, get Fatin out of here before she gets her ass kicked out, or worse, before she swings on Shelby. Because then I _will_ end Fatin’s life, and that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

“Fine,” Leah agrees. She follows Toni toward the bar, to where Shelby’s still trying to talk Fatin down as Fatin tries to harass the bartender into giving another drink. “Fatin!” Leah calls. “Hey!”

“What do you mean, I’m cut off?” Fatin complains to the bartender. “Respectfully, fuck off, okay? I know my limit –”

“Stop,” Leah cuts in, grabbing Fatin by the shoulder. Fatin seems more than confused to see her, eyes rapidly searching Leah’s face as her jaw hangs open, but at least she’s not verbally attacking the bartender anymore. “Stop, okay?” Leah says. “Let’s just go.”

Leah’s eyes lock with Shelby’s, and they each take one of Fatin’s arms, lead her toward the exit, ignoring her protests about how she isn’t done drinking yet. (She can barely stay up on her heels.)

“Thank you,” Shelby tells Leah as they step outside.

“Yeah,” Leah says. “Go back, okay? Help Toni and Rachel with Dot.”

“Are you sure you’ve got her?” Shelby asks.

“Yeah. I’ve got this,” Leah assures her.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Shelby asks quietly.

“Leah can handle me,” Fatin answers, slapping her hand against the center of Leah’s chest before she nearly takes them both down to the cement.

“Maybe just help me get her into the car first,” Leah says, straining under Fatin’s weight.

“Pussy,” Fatin taunts. She doesn’t resist when Shelby takes her other arm again, doesn’t resist as they walk her to the Audi. Fatin pushes them both off of her when they reach the car, gets into the passenger’s seat under her own power.

“You sure you got this?” Shelby asks _again_. “I mean, I can drive her back if you’d rather not.”

“Shelby, no offense, but you aren’t sober, so you cannot drive,” Leah says. “Go back to the others. Make sure Rachel gets Dot out of there safely.”

Shelby nods. “Be careful,” she warns. “Call me if anything goes wrong.”

“Nothing will go wrong.” (Maybe if Leah says that aloud, it’ll come true.)

Shelby squeezes Leah’s arm, smiles encouragingly before heading back to the building. Leah steels herself before she gets behind the wheel of the Audi. She looks to her right to find Fatin hunched forward, face hidden in her hands as her body shakes.

Leah sighs. “Fatin, what’s wrong?” Leah asks. (She puts off starting the engine, doesn’t want Fatin to feel like she’s being rushed.)

“Why are you here?” Fatin asks, voice muffled by her hands. “You left.”

“I told you I’d wait in the car. I was waiting in the car, and Toni called me back in. So what’s wrong?”

“I didn’t get my fucking orgasm,” Fatin says. Then she sits upright, swipes at her eyes, and she’s done crying. “Jesus. I’m a mess.”

(Of course Fatin’s worried about missing out on a fucking orgasm.) Leah starts the engine. Drives them home. She only realizes Fatin won’t be able to walk on her own when she parks in the garage, gets out, and notices that Fatin hasn’t followed her to the door. Leah doubles back, pulls the passenger’s side door open.

“I’m stuck,” Fatin declares.

“Unbuckle your seatbelt first.”

“Oh. Right. I knew that.”

Fatin unbuckles her seatbelt, holds her hand out. Leah takes it due to a lack of other options and helps Fatin out. Fatin almost immediately collapses into Leah when her heels hit the ground, and Leah struggles to keep them both from falling over.

“Ditch the heels,” Leah grunts. Fatin kicks them off, and Leah nudges them out of the way (not trusting that Rachel won’t run them over if she doesn’t) before leading Fatin into the house then toward the stairs. “Help me out here,” Leah grumbles.

“Just leave me on the living room floor,” Fatin says, right next to Leah’s ear. “Just dump me on the floor. I’ll be okay.”

“Stop being dramatic.”

“It’s not like there’s a bed waiting for me upstairs.”

(Fuck. Leah forgot. They have no furniture. Thanks a fucking lot, Dot.)

“You said it yourself,” Leah says. “You’re a mess. You should at least wipe some of this makeup off.”

“Right, right. You’re right. You’re so smart.”

“Stop.”

“Okay.”

Ten minutes later, they reach the top of the stairs. (It’s a whole ordeal, and Leah immediately wants to forget about it.) Leah helps Fatin into her bedroom, then into the connected bathroom, before she leaves to go figure her own shit out. She can’t really complain about sleeping on the floor. She’s slept in worse places than on soft carpet, but she does spread a blanket out, grabs another to actually use, throws a couple pillows down. So she sort of has a bed. Something more than just lying on the carpet.

“Leah!”

Leah sighs, heads across the hall to Fatin’s room, steps into the bathroom to find her on the floor. “What happened?” Leah asks.

“Fell.”

“How?”

Fatin shrugs. “See, I tried to sit on, like, the toilet lid, right? I think I missed.”

Leah holds her hands out, hauls Fatin back to her feet. Fatin stumbles (for no apparent reason) and releases Leah’s hands, grabbing her by the waist instead to keep herself up. (Leah leans back, tries to keep her face a safe distance from Fatin’s.) Leah grabs onto Fatin’s arms, leads her back to take a seat on the toilet lid. Fatin sits, lets her eyes close as she sways side-to-side, looking almost content. Fatin has half of her makeup wiped off, and Leah takes over for her, finishes the job. (Thankfully, Fatin doesn’t try to talk while Leah works as quickly as possible.) Leah pauses when she finishes, when Fatin’s face is bare, then Leah carefully removes the hoops from Fatin’s ear, sets them on the counter. Leah waits with her back turned while Fatin manages to get herself changed into more comfortable clothes.

“You’re going to accidentally kill yourself if I leave you alone, aren’t you?” Leah says.

“Maybe.”

“Let’s go.”

Leah pulls Fatin up again, prepared for Fatin to be wholly unable to keep her balance, and Leah doesn’t waver. She walks Fatin back into the bedroom, but Fatin’s bedroom is a mess of boxes, and Fatin’s belongings are haphazardly tossed all over the place. Leah considers dumping Fatin in Dot’s room, but it sounds like Dot’s going to come home a drunken mess, too, so maybe that’s not the best course of action. (Throw these two drunks in a room together? After Leah spent three months wondering if – _worrying_ that – there was something developing between Fatin and Dot? Dot may actually be straight, and Leah may think she missed her only shot with Fatin, but she’s not about to make this mistake regardless.) She leads Fatin to her own room instead, and Fatin lies down on the center of the blanket Leah laid out without complaining.

Leah hears the door open downstairs, hears their loud-ass friends bursting into the house. “Fatin!” Dot shouts before literally everyone else shushes her.

“She’s upstairs. Calm down,” Shelby tells her.

“No,” Dot says. “No, I need to talk to her, so get out of my way, Texas.”

(Shelby doesn’t say anything – at least, not that Leah can hear – so maybe being called _Texas_ by Dot, of all people, threw her off.)

“You can’t climb stairs by yourself, man,” Rachel interjects. “Come on. We can all sleep down here for tonight. Make it into a thing.”

“A slumber party,” Dot says.

“No,” Rachel replies. “I mean, technically yes, but we’re not calling it that.”

“I’ll get you some blankets,” Toni offers. “If you’ll text Martha and ask her how it’s going.”

“On it,” Rachel says.

A few moments later, Toni appears at the top of the stairs as Leah steps into the hall. “We put the blankets in that closet,” Leah informs.

“Thanks,” Toni says. “Um, Fatin?”

“She’s fine,” Leah says. “Her room’s a mess, so I put her in mine. She’s probably already asleep.”

Toni nods. “Shelby and I will just – we’ll stay downstairs with Dot and Rachel, okay?”

“You don’t have to –”

“I think Shelby’s too tired for any more fun tonight,” Toni interrupts gently. “So if you want to crash in one of our rooms instead…” Toni trails off, shrugs. “Feel free.”

“Thanks.”

Toni heads downstairs with an armful of blankets. Leah returns to her bedroom, quietly shuts the door to block out the sound of Dot continuing to yell about how she wants to speak to Fatin.

“Mm, come over here.”

Leah nearly jumps out of her skin, whips around to see that Fatin has scooched herself toward the edge of the blanket. Fatin pats the empty space beside her without opening her eyes. “Jesus,” Leah breathes. “I thought you were asleep.”

“No.”

“I shouldn’t –”

“Don’t make it weird.”

Leah takes a seat in the empty space on the blanket, draws her knees to her chest. Fatin rolls her head to the side, opens her eyes, stares up at Leah. (Leah has nothing to say. Fatin called her over here. Leah refuses to be the one to start their inevitable conversation.) Leah stares at the wall, knowing Fatin’s trying to get a read on any sort of emotion that might pass across her face.

“Talk to me,” Fatin requests.

“About what?”

“Literally anything. I will take literally anything at this point.”

“You’re drunk,” Leah says flatly. “So. Excuse me for not wanting to carry a conversation.”

“But I’m a – a very well put-together drunk,” Fatin says. “Like I’m pretty coherent right now, don’t you think? I even remembered the word _coherent_.”

“You have a problem, Fatin.”

“You do.”

“No, a real one,” Leah snaps. “A drinking problem.”

“Says the girl with, like, five problems.”

“At least I’ve done something to get help,” Leah retorts. “What have _you_ done except try to drink your shit away for the last year and a half?”

“Okay, rude.”

Leah pulls out her phone, opens Twitter. She tries to ignore the fact that #Leatin is trending in the US, but that’s exactly where she needs to go. It doesn’t take long before she finds a tweet, already retweeted thousands of times, and she drops her phone onto Fatin’s stomach. She watches Fatin lift her phone above her face, squint at the screen.

“What’s this?” Fatin asks.

“That’s you,” Leah says. “And me and Shelby as we dragged your drunk ass out of that club. Someone filmed you screaming at that bartender when he cut you off, and now everyone’s speculating that you have a drinking problem. Check TMZ. They’ve probably already put out a story on it. They love you, you know.”

(That’s not even a lie. TMZ puts out all sorts of articles on Fatin. Normally they’re positive, but TMZ has no problem with tearing down the people they typically build up.)

Fatin keeps watching the video, and her jaw slackens. (The tweet itself says _ummmm so does @FatinJadmani have like a real actual drinking problem because I’m starting to think that maybe she does and someone should help her_.) And when Fatin hands Leah’s phone back and tells her to check TMZ, Fatin’s on the homepage, the headline _Does the Unsinkable Seven’s Fatin Jadmani Have a Drinking Problem?_ (TMZ has _also_ posted the video.)

“So what do I do?” Fatin asks.

“I don’t know. Go to some AA meetings? Call your therapist back and ask for a referral?”

“It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing,” Leah says. She drops her phone somewhere off to the side, finally lays down and turns on her side, facing Fatin. “We can figure it out in the morning,” Leah promises her. “Just try to sleep it off, okay?”

Fatin presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, lips parted. After a few moments of silence, Fatin mutters, “Yeah, okay.” She lets her hands fall, clasps them together over her stomach.

“You’ll be okay,” Leah says, tries to sound more certain than she feels. She hesitates but decides to reach over, laying her palm over the back of Fatin’s hands. “We’ll figure it out,” Leah says.

“Don’t go,” Fatin says softly. Then she inhales sharply. “Unless – maybe we should actually talk first.”

“Tomorrow,” Leah lies. “It’s – it’s fine. I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m really not trying to join the drunken slumber party that’s happening downstairs,” Leah says. “I’m sure Shelby and Toni are gonna sleep all up on each other. Dot’s at least as drunk as you.”

“Good,” Fatin interjects. “She needs to let loose once in a while.”

“I feel bad for Rachel, but I think I actually dodged a bullet by being up here with you,” Leah says.

“And Martha’s out getting some action,” Fatin groans. “Two weeks! It’s been two weeks.”

“Your vibrator’s across the hall,” Leah says bluntly. “If you wanna go take care of it –”

“I can’t do it if I know you’re waiting for me,” Fatin snorts.

“Then don’t complain.”

Leah starts to pull her hand back, but Fatin catches it in the space between them, stops her. Their eyes lock, and Leah thinks she should’ve rolled onto her back so she’d at least have the option to look somewhere other than at Fatin’s face. (Even worse? Fatin rolls onto her side, too, so now they’re really face to face. There’s nowhere to run. And Fatin’s still holding onto her hand.)

“I need you to answer this question, okay?” Fatin says. (She’s so serious, Leah almost forgets she’s still pretty drunk.)

“Okay.” (What’s she going to do, say no?)

“Promise?”

Leah hesitates. “Yeah. Sure. I promise.”

“Am I hurting you?”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together. “No? You’re barely touching me –”

“No, Leah. Not physically.”

Leah’s heart stalls. “Oh.”

“You promised to answer me,” Fatin reminds. (But Leah feels frozen, can only bring herself to squeeze Fatin’s hand, hopes that’s enough to convey she needs a minute to think about her answer.)

“I don’t know,” Leah admits. “I don’t – I’m not sure how to –” Leah falters, but they don’t break eye contact, and she feels like Fatin sees right through her. No. It’s more than that. It’s like what Fatin had told Leah about Dot, while they were on the island (and arguing about Jake Gyllenhaal, for whatever reason). About how Dot _saw_ her, _got_ her. Leah lays here, eyes locked with Fatin’s, and she just knows. She just _knows_ that Fatin _sees_ her, truly sees her. Fatin just knows things about Leah, without even trying. Leah doesn’t have to answer her question with words. She’s already provided Fatin with her answer.

“Why do you let me continue to hurt you, Leah?”

Leah opens her mouth to answer, to say anything, but the words die in her throat. She’s got to be holding onto Fatin’s hand so hard that it hurts, but Fatin just squeezes back, continues to stare into Leah’s eyes. (And shit, maybe Fatin really is a well put-together drunk. Or maybe it’s beginning to wear off. All that drinking she’s been doing over the last year probably raised her tolerance pretty high.)

“Fatin,” Leah whispers.

“Just tell me like it is,” Fatin says. She lays her other hand over their already clasped hands, swallows visibly. (Braces herself for whatever Leah might say, and this time, Leah can tell Fatin doesn’t know. Really doesn’t have a clue. And how could she _not_?)

“Fatin, I love you.”

*

It doesn’t take much to convince Young to do this favor for them. And Leah knows – and can only hope that Fatin knows, too – that they’re being watched, that everything they might write will be read by someone else. So when Young tells Leah he’s willing to slip letters to Fatin (but only Fatin, none of the other girls, so Leah better be sure before this starts that she wants to communicate with Fatin and not someone else, and Leah tells him she’s sure she wants to write to Fatin), Leah starts off with a bang.

_I’m losing my mind in here, Fatin. Like shit, I’m so fucking bored. I don’t want to talk about any heavy shit, though, okay? So let’s just gossip or whatever unless you’d rather just have me write you some fucking poems or something. But they’ll be very shitty if that’s what you’d prefer, fair warning._

Leah gets a response four hours later when a folded piece of paper slides under her door. (Presumably from Young, but who knows?) Leah scrambles over and snatches the paper up, unfolds it. (She knows there’s a camera on her, but hey, it’s not her ass that’ll go down if this is unauthorized. And Leah has a feeling that someone wants them to do this, wants them to share things, to give up information that they won’t say to Young or Faber’s face.) The piece of paper holds Fatin’s undeniably girly script, though it’s shaky, probably due to a lack of writing for three months.

_Girl, keep your shit together. And don’t write me any fucking poems. I will literally kill myself in here. Just kidding. If you don’t get another letter from me, it’s because they intercepted our shit and sedated me. But you’re right. We should gossip. And you know what I figured out? Like right before we got off the island? You’ll never fucking believe it. It’s wild. So Rachel and Martha were TOTALLY carrying a secret relationship the entire fucking time. Literally since day one. Straight off the motherfucking plane. I CAUGHT them. No shit. I never would’ve thought. I mean, Rachel always said she was super fucking straight, and Martha only seemed to have eyes for Marcus, but it was all a game, I guess. They were fucking with us, and they were fucking each other, apparently._

Leah clamps her hand over her mouth, refuses to laugh her ass off at Fatin’s blatant lies. (Lies that are being read by Young or Faber or whatever woman Nora had referred to.) Leah immediately picks up the journal Faber provided her with and scribbles a response. (She’ll only have until Young comes back around to bring her dinner, so she needs to write it as soon as possible.)

_NO FUCKING WAY. Ugh, I THOUGHT those two were up to something. Okay, okay, I guess I should finally just admit this: I was getting off on the island, like, literally every day. I think I might have a problem, and I probably should’ve just gone to you with it, you know? I mean, honestly, you probably could’ve helped me out. We should’ve just gone for it. Another missed opportunity, I guess. No homo, though. Totally island related. Besides, I’m straight._

Leah hands it off to Young then tries to resist the urge to pace anxiously until another piece of paper slips under her door.

_GIRL. NOW YOU TELL ME??? I mean, it’s okay though, because I was totally lying about never having any orgasms. Just didn’t want the other girls catching onto the fact that Toni and I were cheating on Shelby relentlessly. Every chance we got. I had all kinds of orgasms. Multiple orgasms a day, even. Toni’s got some skill. Her display on that mussel was nothing. I was seeing stars. I do feel bad for Shelby, though. I don’t think she knows I’ve been fucking her girlfriend since the third week._

Leah folds the note up carefully, tucks it away with the other one.

_NO WAY NO FAIR HOW COULD YOU??? I HAD A MASSIVE CRUSH ON TONI SINCE, LIKE, DAY SEVEN. I feel so betrayed right now. But I guess it’s not your fault. I mean, I told Nora, and I guess she didn’t sell me out to any of the rest of the girls. She told me to go for it, and I missed my chance because then Toni got with Shelby – and with you, apparently??? I feel like that’s breaking girl code even if you didn’t know._

When Young opens the door to take Leah’s letter, he sighs heavily.

“What?” Leah says.

“Nothing,” he says quickly.

“You aren’t regretting offering to help me write letters to Fatin, are you?” Leah questions. “You wouldn’t be snooping through our private business, right?”

“No! No, of course not,” he lies. (Of course it’s a lie. Look at him. He looks so tired. So disappointed. Leah hopes whoever’s in charge is losing her mind.)

_If I had known you had a thing for Toni, I would’ve invited you to join us!! Jesus, you should’ve said something. We could’ve had some real fun then. Could’ve been just like an actual island vacation. Shelby might’ve even forgiven us. I know she’s a Jesus freak, but apparently she’s also a freak-freak. I’d say in the sheets but there were no sheets, just trees. She’s got like a whole blood kink and everything. Toni gave me ALL the dirty details, and I don’t even think I can write it here. Don’t want to scandalize you too much, you know ;)_

Leah swallows hard, heart pounding in her throat. (Nothing in this letter is remotely true, of course. Toni was very tight-lipped about everything between her and Shelby. She’d make jokes, sure, but never gave away anything specific.) Leah stares at the stupid little ;) that Fatin ended the note with. (Well, no. Fatin signs every letter with a capital _F_. So technically the little capital _F_ ended the letter, but it was accompanied by the ;) that Leah really shouldn’t be overanalyzing right now.)

_Yeah, no, I’m good, but I do need to tell you something. You know that dildo you snuck into your suitcase for the resort trip? And the rest of us weren’t supposed to know about it? Well, Dot sure as hell knew about it, because she was totally using it the whole time. Sorry, I know I should’ve said something sooner, but I couldn’t bring myself to deprive Dot of that pleasure. But you both might want to get STD tested when you get the chance. You know, since you were banging Toni, and she was banging Shelby, and you and Dot were both banging that dildo on the regular. It’s amazing you all weren’t having, like, herpes breakouts or something. You can’t all be clean._

Leah maybe feels a little bad for that one, but she sends it with Young and waits for a response. (Feels nervous, sitting at her desk and tapping her pen against the wood.) She almost tips backwards out of her chair when Fatin’s response arrives.

_Let me tell you a secret: I knowingly passed HPV to all of them. It’s cool, though. I’m sure they’ll forgive me. And if you’re still down, once we get out of this place, I’m more than happy to pass HPV to you, too. So here’s my number. Call me ;)_

The note’s a lie. The phone number probably isn’t. That would be too obvious. (As if all of this shouldn’t obviously be a lie, too. But when it comes up at trial, both Leah and Fatin testify that everything they wrote was a total lie, designed to throw off whoever was intercepting them, while also providing both of them with some much needed entertainment, some kind of human interaction while they were detained separately.) But still, the note makes Leah nervous – more nervous than before, and it’s not just the stupid _;) xoxo F_ at the bottom of the page.

_I know I wrote not that long ago that I had a massive crush on Toni the whole time, but you know what? I think now I might actually be in love with YOU. I can’t wait to get out of this place and make it official and catch HPV from you, honestly. Like let’s do this. We almost died on a fucking island. Let’s take a chance. What do you say?_

Leah feels like she could pass out as she hands that note, folded in half, to Young. (And he looks so, _so_ tired.) She sits on the edge of her bed, trying to will her sudden lightheaded feeling away. She has to wait until the next morning to get Fatin’s letter. Leah rushes to open it, expecting more than just the one short sentence Fatin has written for her.

_You got it, baby. – F_

Leah folds it up, slips it into her bra, knowing it’s the only place she won’t lose it. (She leaves the other notes, full of fake gossip, in the desk. Let Faber have them. Let him agonize over what it all might mean.) But this note? Leah’s going to keep this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao you guys thought the last chapter's cliffhanger was bad? How's this one? I love chapter 24, guys, so get ready. Also I told you those letters in one of the earlier chapters were gonna come back lol.
> 
> Thank you all for being absolutely incredible. I love each and every one of you. Leave me your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Or feel free to shoot me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	24. 26

“Leah –”

“Stop,” Leah blurts. “I want to go first.”

Fatin falls silent. Their hands still rest in the space between them, and Leah’s still gripping onto Fatin’s hand (too tightly), and Fatin’s still squeezing right back. (But when Leah had said _those_ words, Fatin’s breath hitched in her throat, and something flashed in her eyes, and Leah knows exactly what it was. It was distinctly _fear_ more than anything else. Just complete and total terror. Leah can tell that Fatin is trying so hard not to flip out, not to panic, at least not yet, not in front of Leah.)

“Okay,” Fatin breathes.

“How could you not know?” Leah whispers. “God, I mean, I know I’ve been trying to, like, fight it or whatever and thought if I refused to acknowledge it, maybe it would go away, you know? Except it never did. I just kept pushing it off, pushing it aside, and you never figured it out – or you did, and I don’t know. We ended up at that party and everything blew up, but Jesus, Fatin, even before then – even maybe since the _island_ , I’ve – I don’t even know when it started. But it’s been _here_ , this entire time. I’ve _loved you_ this entire time. And not talking to you for a year let it fade away into the back of my mind, and if you would’ve stayed out of my life, I would’ve moved forward eventually. And then when we all decided to move in together, I thought I would be okay just – just being friends. I wanted it to be okay, but I can’t – I can’t see you with –” Leah’s voice breaks, and she pauses.

(Fatin never once breaks eye contact, and while Fatin might be able to read Leah like a fucking book, Leah cannot read Fatin. The initial flash of fear is gone, replaced with something Leah can’t decipher.)

“I can’t see you with anyone else,” Leah says. “Not without it feeling like I’m being stabbed in the fucking chest, over and over and _over._ But I – I’ve only just told you now that this is, like, a thing that I feel. So it’s not like you’ve been hurting me intentionally, but I guess you’re right. I guess I have been letting you hurt me because I refused to fucking say something before right now. And I can’t – I can’t just keep dancing around it anymore. You caught me today, in that club. I was jealous of that guy with the fucking blue eyes. You were right. And it’s because I love you. I – I love you, okay? And now you need to fucking say something,” Leah says, inhaling raggedly. (Leah doesn’t know when the tears started falling, but of course she’s crying. How could she not? And Fatin still hasn’t looked away, hasn’t given any indication of what she’s feeling, hasn’t reacted at all. And _how_ can Fatin just decide she’s not going to outwardly show her emotions? How can she just make that happen?)

Fatin pries Leah’s hand from hers, immediately goes to swipe her fingertips through the dampness on Leah’s cheek. (Leah tries not to flinch, fails, and Fatin lifts her hand momentarily, trying to gauge if Leah wants her to pull away completely.) Fatin grabs Leah’s hand again then, in both of her own, and Fatin holds on tight so her hands won’t tremble. (They still do, just a little.)

“Leah,” Fatin says. (And her voice, her eyes, are clear. Maybe she’s not sober, but she’s not stupid drunk, either.) “I’m so sorry. I am _so_ sorry.”

Leah closes her eyes. She can’t stare at Fatin’s stupid, beautiful fucking face anymore. Leah bites down on her lower lip, wishes she could get herself to stop shaking. “For what?” Leah asks.

“I can’t do this,” Fatin says. (And Leah wonders if Fatin knows exactly what she’s doing, if she knows all the ways she’s breaking Leah’s heart in real time, as they clutch onto each other’s hands, as Leah’s blunt nails press into Fatin’s skin.) “I mean – I’m already hurting you,” Fatin says. “And I should’ve known sooner. I should’ve done something about it sooner.”

“You – when we were house hunting, you _admitted_ that you liked me,” Leah says. (She knows she’s holding onto Fatin’s hand too hard, knows it’s probably hurting her, but Fatin doesn’t say anything, doesn’t react as if she’s in pain. She squeezes back, and it doesn’t physically hurt Leah, but the last time she was in this much pain was –) “You _said_ it, and now – oh my _God_ , I really did miss my chance. I fucking missed it.”

“Leah, please. Please stop,” Fatin pleads.

(She can’t.)

“We both – we were both _there_ ,” Leah sobs (because there’s no stopping it now, but damn it, Leah is going to talk right through her fucking tears). “At that _fucking_ party, we both _liked_ each other, and if one of us would’ve just – if I would’ve just _said_ it –”

“Leah, I still couldn’t have –”

“Because you’re afraid to deal with your feelings?” Leah accuses. “You liked me, and it scared you, and you didn’t want to fuck because of that. Whatever. But we could’ve _talked_ about it instead, and – and Jesus, _fuck_ , why didn’t we talk about it?” Leah moans. (She’s not in physical pain, so how does it feel like she is? Why does she feel vaguely sick?) Fatin’s eyes shine with unshed tears, and her jaw clenches. She swallows hard, stares Leah in the eye. (Holds Leah’s hand tighter, somehow.) “It’s all my fault. Jesus, it’s all my fault,” Leah says.

“Leah, please.”

“I let you go,” Leah breathes. “I let you walk away. I didn’t – I didn’t try harder, couldn’t get you to talk to me, so I gave up and now – it’s all my fault.”

“Stop,” Fatin says firmly. She frees her hand from Leah’s again, places it against Leah’s jaw. “Look at me. Leah, open your eyes. Look at me.” (She considers keeping them closed, just to spite Fatin, but she can’t resist. Never has been able to.) “It’s not your fault,” Fatin insists. “It’s mine. I never should’ve – I should’ve just shut it down. We never should’ve even made it to that bedroom at that party.”

“Don’t,” Leah begs. She reaches out, grasps a fistful of the front of Fatin’s shirt ( _EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS_ ). “Please don’t tell me you regret everything. I can’t – please don’t.”

“All I’ve done is hurt you,” Fatin says. (Her thumb strokes Leah’s cheek, wipes away the tears as they fall.) “And I’m sorry it took me so long to – I’m so sorry.”

“Fatin, _please_. Please don’t do this.”

“Leah,” Fatin says softly. “You and I both know that I’m just like my father. And I’m so sorry for hurting you so much already, but I don’t know how I could live with myself if I let myself – if I let myself hurt you even more than I already have. I can’t do this.”

Leah releases Fatin’s shirt, reaches up and pulls Fatin’s hand off her face. (Fatin, of course, does not resist.) Leah covers her face with her hands as her sobs go completely silent, as she starts to feel like she can’t breathe. (And the kicker is, Leah and Fatin were never even together. Were never even anything. But somehow, this hurts more than Jeff leaving ever did, even at its worst.) Leah doesn’t have the energy (or the willpower, maybe) to fight Fatin off when she grabs Leah’s arm and slides herself closer, when she guides Leah’s head to her chest, when her arms wrap tightly around Leah’s body.

(And Leah doesn’t know if she wants to stay as close to Fatin as possible or if she wants to shove her away. Doesn’t know if she wants to beg Fatin not to leave her or yell at her to get the fuck out of her life and stay out. Leah doesn’t know how they’re ever going to come back from this – and it dawns on her that maybe they aren’t going to.)

Maybe dying on that fucking island would’ve been better. (Okay, Leah will admit, that’s a tad overdramatic of her.) And it should be really fucking embarrassing to cry herself to the point of sheer exhaustion, straight into Fatin’s chest as Leah holds onto a fistful of the back of Fatin’s shirt like it’s her lifeline, like if she lets go, Fatin’s just going to disappear. But once Leah’s too exhausted to cry any more tears, as she gasps for air, she lets go of Fatin’s shirt. Fatin’s hold on her is secure, but it breaks easily as Leah rolls back. (And she inhales deeply, her first breath in at least the last five minutes that doesn’t smell faintly like Fatin’s expensive ass perfume.)

Then Leah’s eyes lock onto _it_. Onto that fucking watch. (And she remembers what Fatin said about it. _It’s a reminder of who I am. And who I shouldn’t let myself be._ So what was that about then? Was it a lie? Is she lying now? Or did she just realize she can’t fight who she thinks she is? Maybe she doesn’t _want_ to fight it; maybe she’s made peace with being like her father. None of it makes sense. Or maybe Leah’s brain just can’t piece it together right.)

“Leah –”

“No,” Leah says hoarsely. She holds her hand out as both a sign for Fatin to shut up and definitely to not touch her. “Stop.”

“I can go,” Fatin says, already starting to get up. “It’s your room. I’ll go –”

Leah’s on her feet faster, already halfway to the door before Fatin’s up. (Leah grabs her phone on her way, thinking of maybe calling Ian, even though it’s late as hell and he’s definitely asleep.) She slams the door behind her, forgetting (or maybe not caring) that there are other people in the house. She rushes down the stairs, snatches the keys off the counter without checking to see which vehicle they belong to. As she passes through the living room, Rachel lifts her head.

“Hey,” Rachel grunts. “Where you going?”

“Out,” Leah manages to reply without sounding like she’s been sobbing her soul out. “I’ll be back.”

She’s out the door before she hears Rachel’s reply, hits the unlock button on the key fob to see which vehicle lights up. She’d rather not take the Escalade, but she’s not going back inside to swap the keys for the ones to the Audi, just in case Rachel tries to stop her. Leah backs out of the driveway and onto the street before she thinks about where she might go. (She doesn’t know LA very well. She could very easily get lost. And honestly? That’s kind of what she wants right now. She can find her way back via Google Maps later.)

She doesn’t know what happens.

*

“Guys, um, can you all shut up for a minute?” Toni asks. Everyone fall silent instantly, and their eyes immediately fall on Toni’s hand, fingers intertwined with _Shelby’s_. Martha’s jaw falls open, but Fatin’s wearing an _I totally fucking knew it_ look on her face. “We have something to tell you,” Toni says. The smile on her face is so wide, so un-Toni-like, and Shelby looks so painfully awkward, but when she looks at Toni, it’s like she’s looking at Jesus himself (maybe that’s dramatic, but Shelby does kind of get this dazed look on her face, as if she’s staring at the Lord, when her eyes fall on Toni’s face).

“No way!” Dot exclaims, laughing in disbelief. “What happened to the whole –?”

“We got past that,” Toni interrupts. “I mean, Shelby figured some stuff out.”

“Well, congratulations,” Leah says as the initial shock passes.

“Yeah, no shit,” Fatin agrees. “You have no idea how happy I am for you two idiots.” Dot hits her in the arm, but they’re all grinning and congratulating Toni and Shelby. Martha goes to get all the details from Toni, and Leah glances over at Rachel, passed out. (Missing all of this, and they debate over waking her up to tell her, but that’s hardly a question. Rachel only lost her hand a couple of days ago. They let her sleep.)

“So, I think we need to lay down some ground rules,” Dot says.

“Like what?” Shelby questions. (She hasn’t let go of Toni’s hand this entire time.)

“Like one: no banging around camp, whether there are other people here or not.”

“Dottie!” Shelby exclaims as Toni busts out laughing.

“Two: no banging anywhere we can see and/or find you.”

“Please stop,” Shelby groans. “We will be considerate of you all. I promise.”

“Three,” Fatin pipes up, “no fucking in our water supply. I don’t care if we boil it afterwards. That’s not okay.”

“Anything else?” Toni asks.

“I’m sure we’ll think of more,” Dot says, smirking. “But until then, I’m really happy for you both.”

“Okay, now knock that shit off,” Toni says, pushing at Dot’s shoulder. “We just told you all up front so you wouldn’t wonder what the fuck happened.”

“Oh, we’re still wondering,” Dot says. “But you’re right. Now we don’t have to interrogate you about why you’re suddenly holding hands and kissing and sneaking off to bang and whatever.”

“So how do I get an island girlfriend then?” Fatin jokes. “Which one of you fuckers wants me? Dorothy?”

“Straight,” Dot reminds.

“Gay for the stay, baby. Come on. Help me out.”

Leah goes to check on Rachel as Dot and Fatin exchange gay jokes and push at each other, almost starting a full on wrestling match. Rachel’s still asleep, thanks to the drugs, and her hand seems the same as before, so Leah runs out of distractions. She happens to catch Shelby’s eye, entirely by accident, and Shelby flashes her a quick, gentle smile. Shelby’s wearing this look on her face – a look Leah doesn’t like, though she isn’t entirely sure why it’s there. Like maybe Shelby knows something Leah doesn’t. But Leah just smiles back, tells herself to be happy for Toni and Shelby. And she is happy for them.

(But she watches Dot and Fatin’s wrestling match, and she’s not _happy_.)


	25. 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this, there are only three more chapters! Well, two plus an epilogue. Since my exams fucked up my posting schedule and now I'm on break (so I'm not forced to wake up early), I'll post these last few chapters at night.

Everything is too bright when Leah’s eyes open, and first, she thinks _oh God, I’m dead_ , but her second thought is much, _much_ scarier than the thought of death. _Oh God, I never got off the island_.

“Leah?”

And _shit,_ holy shit, she actually _is_ back on the island, because that accented voice belongs to Shelby fucking Goodkind. They never got off. How could that be possible? How could it –?

“Leah,” Shelby says again, followed by pressure on Leah’s hand, but it feels distant. “Can you hear me?”

Leah groans, and some of the haziness starts to fade as she attempts to focus on Shelby’s voice, on where it might be coming from. (Right next to her, literally to her left. If she could just turn her head –) “I thought –” Leah rasps, pauses to clear her throat, “I thought we got off.”

“Got off?” Shelby questions. “What are you talking about?”

“The island,” Leah says. “I thought we got off.”

“Honey, we are off,” Shelby tells her, squeezes Leah’s hand tighter. (And Leah can feel it a little better this time, can tell it’s Shelby holding her hand instead of just a vague feeling of pressure.) “You don’t know where you are? Or what happened?”

“Jesus, just tell her.”

Leah’s blood runs cold, and she turns her head without thinking. Her vision’s still sort of blurry, but she blinks until it clears, until she’s staring into Shelby’s (gorgeous – have they always been this gorgeous?) eyes. And standing right beside Shelby is _her_. Fatin Jadmani. (Except she looks pretty rough. Definitely hungover. She tied her hair up sloppily, and she’s wearing her clothes from last night – sweats and the _EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS_ T-shirt from Dot. The fact that Fatin would risk letting anyone see her in public like this – something really bad must’ve happened.)

“Get out,” Leah spits. Shelby startles, looks back at Fatin to see that Fatin isn’t exactly surprised.

“I’ll be in the waiting room,” Fatin tells Shelby. She smiles wryly then adds, “Told you she wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Why is she – what is she doing here?” Leah stammers. “Where am I?”

“Leah, you’re in the hospital,” Shelby says. “Fatin was in your phone as your emergency contact, so that’s who the doctors called. She brought me along. We’ve been here almost seven hours. I mean, you were taken care of pretty quickly, but they sedated you.”

“I – I – what happened?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“I –” Leah cuts herself off, squeezes her eyes shut. She remembers Fatin outright rejecting her, remembers needing to leave – not just her bedroom, but the house. Remembers getting into the Escalade – “Fuck,” Leah breathes. “Oh, fuck, what did I do?”

“Sounds like you blew a red light,” Shelby says. “And someone was driving through the intersection. You’re not in any pain, are you? I can call a nurse.”

“I’m fine,” Leah insists. “I need to – you need to keep her away from me.”

“What?” Shelby says. “Fatin was – I mean, she was freaking out when she got the call. She woke all our asses up – even woke Dottie’s drunk ass up – with her screaming. I had to drive us here, because she was too shaken.” Shelby pauses, and her (fucking gorgeous – how did Leah never notice before?) eyes study Leah’s face. “Leah. What happened? Before you left. Why did you take off?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Leah. Come on. You’re lucky the car didn’t flip, okay? You’re lucky you’re walking away with a minor concussion and some bruises and some stitches. You could’ve died.”

“Any of us could’ve died,” Leah says through her teeth. “At any moment on that fucking island. Two of us did die. I’m not worried.”

“I am,” Shelby says firmly, grabbing onto Leah’s arm with her free hand. “I am worried, okay? So – so you don’t have to give me all the dirty details, but _please_ , at least give me some kind of explanation of what happened. Why did you leave in the middle of the night?”

Leah inhales deeply, shakily (and tries not to think about the discomfort in her chest, tries not to wonder if that’s where some of that bruising that Shelby mentioned is, tries not to think about how she’ll be slapped with pain as soon as the painkillers start to wear off). “She rejected me,” Leah says.

Shelby’s eyebrows pull together. “What?”

“Fatin. Rejected. Me,” Leah says, slower this time. “I told her – _fuck_ , Shelby, I told her I _loved_ her, and she rejected me.” Leah’s teeth sink into her lip, but she quickly stops when she tastes blood, realizes her lip is split. (Maybe from hitting the airbag? Did that happen? It’s all one big blank spot.) Shelby grabs a tissue from the table next to her, uses it to dab away the blood from Leah’s lip and then chin. Leah realizes then that the discomfort spreads to her left cheek, would try to touch it if Shelby wasn’t holding her hand down.

“Don’t touch your face,” Shelby warns, as if she can read minds. “You don’t wanna mess up those stitches, okay?”

“Stitches?” Leah stutters. “ _In my face_?”

“From the glass, honey.”

“Glass – did I _total_ that car? I can’t afford that –”

“Fatin’s already looking into finding a replacement,” Shelby assures her. “And technically, you _can_ afford it, but I’ll give you a pass for forgetting that given the circumstances. Don’t stress over it, though. The important thing’s that you’re okay, right? Mostly okay. Minor injuries.”

“Do my parents know? Does Ian?” Leah frets.

Shelby grimaces. “I’m afraid everyone knows. TMZ broke the story in the middle of the night. But don’t worry. Fatin talked to your parents and Ian, and they know you’re okay.”

Leah grits her teeth, but it causes a sharper pain in her face this time, and maybe she should think about getting more of those painkillers. ( _Fatin_ told her parents and Ian. _Fatin_. They talked to _her_ , probably only hours after Fatin rejected her.) “Shelby, I told her I _loved_ her, and she said she can’t –” Leah’s voice cracks, and Shelby nods, takes Leah’s hand in both of hers.

“It’s okay,” Shelby says. “You don’t have to tell me the rest if you don’t want to. I can, um. I can tell her to leave, if that’s what you want me to do? Dottie had quite the night, and she’s back at home hugging the toilet bowl, you know? So I could send Fatin back and have her send Rachel or – or Martha, maybe? If she’s home by now, that is. Martha had quite the night with Mark, it sounded like.”

“No, I – I don’t know,” Leah says. “I don’t want to see anyone else.”

“Okay,” Shelby agrees. “I can stay. The doctors said they’d likely discharge you later today. Your scans were okay. No brain bleeds or anything nasty like that.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“I can’t,” Leah mutters. “Can you just – can you get a nurse? It’s all starting to hurt.”

(But the emotional pain might still be worse.)

Shelby nods, leans over to press the call button. “Maybe stay off Twitter,” Shelby suggests.

“Let me guess,” Leah says flatly. “Leatin?”

“They’re fighting over whether Leatin or Shoni is cuter,” Shelby chuckles. “Guess they got some footage of me and Toni dancing last night.”

“Shit, Shelby, I’m –”

“No, it’s okay,” Shelby assures her, patting her arm. “I’m not going to hide us forever. And I’m a thousand miles away from my family. I can be free now. Don’t you worry about me.”

Leah inhales shakily. “Before I get high on painkillers, I should probably call my mom. And Ian.”

Shelby pulls Leah’s phone out of her pocket, hands it over. She leaves the room so Leah can make the calls. She explains to her mom that she doesn’t remember what happened, but she’s okay and should be out of the hospital later, and no, she doesn’t need her mom to come down here.

“They’ll look after me,” Leah promises. “You really don’t have to come all the way down here. I don’t want to risk anything happening to you, too.”

“Okay, honey,” her mom agrees. “Tell Fatin thank you for us, okay?”

Leah swallows hard, unclenches her jaw only because it’s hurting the wound in her cheek that’s stitched shut (that Leah still hasn’t seen, that might leave a nasty scar). “Okay,” Leah says faintly. “Love you, Mom.”

She calls Ian, listens to him yell (not at her, just in general) for a few minutes before she tells him she’s fine, and no, he doesn’t have to come down here. “How did this even happen?” he shouts. “Does the universe have a sick sense of humor? You getting hit by a car wasn’t enough. You also had to get hit while you were driving a car?”

Leah winces. “It was my fault.”

“Even so!”

“Ian,” Leah says sharply.

“Yeah?”

(The nurse enters the room at this moment, because of course she does.)

“She rejected me,” Leah says.

“What?” Ian questions. “What do you mean – you told Fatin.”

“And she rejected me.”

“Oh, Leah –”

“I’m about to get shot up with painkillers,” Leah informs him. “So hopefully I’m going to at least feel nothing if not go straight back to sleep. We can talk about it later, okay?”

“Leah, wait –”

She hangs up, gives the nurse permission to proceed. When she wakes up again, she doesn’t know how much time has passed, but Shelby’s slumped against the edge of the bed, asleep with her head resting against her arms. Leah can’t resist. She reaches up and trails her fingertips along the line of stitches in her left cheek, wincing. (It doesn’t quite hurt, isn’t too sore yet, so maybe the morphine hasn’t cleared her system completely.)

“You shouldn’t touch your face.”

Leah’s hand drops, and she rolls her head to the side – the opposite side of Shelby. Fatin’s seated a good four or five feet away in a cheap chair, one leg folded over the other, phone in her hand. She doesn’t even look up. (She’s not wearing what she’d been wearing earlier anymore. Her hair’s still up, but she’s wearing a hot pink track suit – not entirely unlike the one she’d had on the island – and her face definitely has a light amount of makeup on it, and her hoops are in.)

“I thought I told you to get out,” Leah snaps.

“And I did,” Fatin points out. She lifts her eyes from her phone now, tucks the phone into her pocket. She motions to her clothes, points at one of the hoops in her ears. “I came back.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Fatin shrugs. “These aren’t usual circumstances, Leah.”

“Don’t – don’t say my name,” Leah hisses. She clenches her jaw this time _because_ it hurts, and it keeps her focused, helps ward off the remaining haze from the drugs. “I thought you wanted to stop hurting me,” Leah says. (And it feels good to see her words catch Fatin off guard.) “You want to stop? Then get out.”

“Leah –”

“I _said_ , don’t say my name.” Leah’s voice raises just enough to cause Shelby to stir, and she lifts her hand, grasping onto Leah’s knee over the blankets.

“You’re up,” Shelby says groggily. “Good. I’ll get the doctor. Maybe they’ll discharge you soon.”

“I’ll get the doctor,” Fatin corrects. She’s already across the room.

“You okay?” Shelby asks.

“Fine.”

“In pain?”

Leah huffs, stares up at the ceiling. “More than I think you know, Shelby.”

“Well,” Shelby says slowly, “I’m afraid that opioids can totally fix that – and I know you aren’t talking about physical pain – but I’m also afraid that I can’t let that happen.”

“Yeah, I know,” Leah grumbles. “Just keep her away from me.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Shelby says. “Anyway, just so you know, Rachel went and rented a car. Kind of didn’t have a choice, since the Audi only seats two, but Fatin was very insistent on staying here all day.”

“She changed. Like, her clothes.”

“We may have went home,” Shelby admits. “Just to shower and change. We came right back.”

“It’s okay,” Leah says. “You didn’t have to come back.”

“Obviously I did, at least,” Shelby says. She pats Leah’s knee, gets to her feet and sighs heavily. “Someone’s got to take you home, after all.”

The doctor, for the first time, gives Leah the rundown of her injuries. (Nothing too major; the concussion is the most concerning, but she should recover as long as she rests properly, and she’ll need to get the stitches out of her face eventually. The bruising should take care of itself, but she should come back or at least call if anything worsens significantly.) As he talks, Fatin lingers behind him. The doctor discharges Leah with a prescription for some sort of opioids, except Shelby crumples the piece of paper up in her hand as they’re on their way out. (“Tylenol and Advil should do just fine,” Shelby says. “Sorry, but we don’t need any drug addicts. That would just be one more thing for TMZ to speculate about.”)

“There’s some good news, at least,” Shelby says brightly as she helps Leah into the passenger’s seat of the rental car. (It’s another fucking Escalade, because apparently Rachel only specified that they need a vehicle that seats at least seven, and this is what they gave her.) “All of our furniture has been delivered. I don’t think Toni was too pleased that she had to direct all the gentlemen as to where to put the furniture, but like I said earlier, Dottie’s been pretty attached to that toilet bowl today. Anyway, you have an actual bed to sleep in now.”

And Shelby keeps talking the entire way home, and Leah doesn’t mind it, because she’s trying not to let her eyes drift to the side mirror since it gives her a decent view of the bright yellow Audi following behind them. Before Shelby has even parked the rental car, Rachel, Toni, and Martha are waiting for them on the front lawn. Rachel’s got her hand tucked into the pocket of her sweats. Martha’s fucking glowing, even if the concern on her face sort of overrides her own underlying happiness. Toni has both her arms crossed over her chest, looks vaguely annoyed, but Leah attributes that to the fact that she handled getting their house furnished even though Dot had promised to take care of it.

As Shelby’s getting out to help Leah down, Rachel joins them, offers Leah her hand. Leah takes it, lets Rachel and Shelby help her down and inside.

“You feeling alright, Rilke?” Rachel asks gruffly.

“I’ve been worse,” Leah grunts.

“Yeah, you’ve definitely looked worse.”

(Neither of them laugh.) They go straight upstairs, past the hall bathroom where Dot’s passed out on the floor with the door wide open, and Shelby and Rachel wait until Leah’s in her (brand new) bed, beneath the sheets since someone so graciously made the bed for her. (She later finds out _that_ was Toni, too. Leah almost doesn’t believe it, believes it even less when Shelby tells her she didn’t even have to ask Toni to do it.)

“I’m gonna be checking on you, okay?” Shelby warns. “And you don’t get to say no or lock me out. Toni will be more than happy to break this door down for me, okay?”

“Yeah,” Leah mumbles. “That’s fine. I’m just gonna sleep.”

After her door shuts, she hears Toni say, “Man, I don’t think Dot’s ever gonna drink again.”

“Hopefully she’s learned her lesson,” Shelby replies.

“Is she gonna be okay?”

“Dottie will be fine –”

“No, not Dot. Leah,” Toni says.

Shelby sighs heavily, and their voices get harder to hear as they head for the stairs. “Physically, yes,” Shelby says. “Emotionally? Well – I think we should watch her.”

*

Rachel spends an hour staring at the spot where her hand used to be. (Leah knows, because she checks Fatin’s watch twice – and Fatin doesn’t complain, just lets Leah tug her wrist over when she desires – and an hour goes by.) All things considered, the stump is healing decently. No signs of infection. They seriously depleted their drug supply over this injury, and for good reason, it seems. Rachel’s alive and well, and they’ve hit day forty, so it seems unlikely she’ll die of an unexpected infection. (It’s only ten days until they’ll hit a serious milestone. For some reason, fifty feels like a significant number.)

“Stop fucking staring at me, Rilke,” Rachel snaps. “If you want someone to stare at, Fatin’s right there. You know she won’t mind it.”

“I won’t,” Fatin agrees. (She’s frowning at her nails.)

“Are you okay?” Leah asks abruptly. Rachel tears her eyes away from her arm, locks her piercing gaze onto Leah’s face instead.

“Do I fucking look okay to you?” Rachel seethes. She holds her arm up. “I don’t have a hand! And I don’t have a sister, either. Would _you_ be okay, if you were in my position?”

Leah holds her hands up in surrender. “No, obviously I wouldn’t,” Leah says. “I’m just asking, like, are you going to throw yourself into the ocean in a crazed attempt to escape?”

Rachel doesn’t even crack a smile. “No.”

“Are you going to try to kill yourself in any other sort of way?”

“What? Fucking no!” Rachel exclaims. “Jesus, Rilke. Where the fuck did that come from?”

“I think it’s a valid question,” Fatin pipes up. (Still frowning at her nails.)

“Shut up, Fatin. No one asked you,” Rachel says.

“I’ll be the first person to admit,” Leah says, “that I don’t really know how to handle, like, trauma. But this was definitely a traumatic event –”

“As if everything that’s happened to us hasn’t been fucking traumatic,” Rachel sneers. “Our plane fell into the ocean. What’s losing a hand and losing your sister because she decided to die for you, too?”

“That’s not your fault,” Leah says quietly. “She saved you. She didn’t know if she would die or not, but she wanted you to live.”

“Yeah? You all keep fucking telling me, and you know what? It doesn’t do me any good, so you can just shut up about it,” Rachel says. “And I’m tired of you all looking at me like – like I’m something you pity. I’m not suddenly fragile.”

“We know,” Leah says.

“Yeah, you’ve made it pretty clear,” Fatin adds.

“So why are you two babysitting me while everyone else is off doing actual shit?” Rachel demands.

“We aren’t babysitting you,” Fatin answers. She stops frowning at her nails and picks up the fire stick, pokes at the fire. “We’re tending the fire.”

“The fire is a one person job,” Rachel points out, eyes narrowing in Leah’s direction.

“It’s Leah’s day off,” Fatin replies, flashing Rachel a smile. “She’s keeping me company while Dot’s getting water.”

“Exactly,” Leah says. “And it’s not like we’re forcing you to stay here with us. You could leave.”

Rachel’s eyebrows raise. “You mean you wouldn’t follow me? I’m not on some twenty four hour suicide watch or something?”

“No,” Leah says. (But she knows Rachel has really only gotten up when she needs to. Bathroom trips. Rinsing off in the ocean first thing in the morning. Otherwise, she stays bundled up in more than her fair share of Fatin’s clothes, sits or lies down in the same spot. And the last few days, she’s been spending a lot of time staring at her arm. So if Rachel was to try to get up just to get away from Leah and Fatin, it’d probably be nothing short of a miracle.)

“Wait,” Rachel says. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No one said that,” Leah says.

“Besides, we’re not really sure you know how to get up anymore,” Fatin says. (She ignores the glare Leah shoots her.) “You know, unless you have to take a piss or wash off. Do your legs not work in other situations?”

“Fatin,” Leah warns, but Rachel’s immediately on her feet.

“You wanna fucking go, Fatin? I don’t care if I have one hand. I’ll still have no trouble kicking your ass.”

“Hey, look! She got up,” Fatin tells Leah.

“Yeah, and she wants to kick your ass.”

“My ass is too pretty to be kicked,” Fatin dismisses. Her full attention is back on her nails, even as Rachel stands with her hand clenched into a fist. “If she wants to hit someone, take one for the team, will you?”

“No!” Leah says. “You’re the one provoking her.”

“You’re the one harassing her,” Fatin retorts.

“I’m right here,” Rachel reminds.

“Excuse me for being, like, a little bit worried,” Leah replies.

“I don’t need you to worry about me,” Rachel interjects. “I don’t need _any_ of you to worry about me or babysit me.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Fatin says, waving her hand around. “But we’re all you’ve got out here now. And you’d be dead without us.”

“I didn’t _ask_ any of you to save me!” Rachel yells. “You could’ve fucking let me die! Why didn’t you?” (Leah and Fatin exchange a look, and suddenly, they’re both content to be silent.) “You should’ve saved her instead of me!” Rachel bends down, grabs a fistful of sand, and throws it toward the ocean. (Leah, for a second there, anticipated that Rachel would be throwing the sand at her instead, and she exhales in relief when that doesn’t happen.)

“Rachel, we couldn’t have – I’m not sure an actual doctor could’ve –” Leah says, but she falters and trails off as her eyes land on Rachel’s face. “We tried to,” Leah says. “You know we tried –”

“Well, you should’ve tried _harder_ ,” Rachel insists. (She throws more sand, because Leah’s pretty sure if she threw some of their actual supplies at the ocean, Fatin would actually attempt to fight her.) “You should’ve focused on _her_ instead of on me.”

“You had the better chance,” Fatin says. “I’m sorry, but it was a no-brainer. I mean, we’re in literal hell, and you lost an actual hand, but you’re still alive by some goddamn miracle. And we’ve used so much of our resources trying to keep you that way, so maybe you should just calm it down a little.”

“What if it was one of your brothers, Fatin?” Rachel demands. “What if we all decided to let one of your brothers die because it’d be easier to try to save you?”

“We didn’t decide,” Leah interjects before Fatin can get heated. “By the time Nora got to shore – we were losing her. We couldn’t have done anything, but we could help you. And we weren’t just going to let you die, too. We couldn’t help her, but we could help you, and we did. You shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

Rachel drops back down to the sand. “She should’ve let it get me,” Rachel says. (She clears her throat forcefully when her voice breaks, but Leah and Fatin both pretend like they don’t notice.) “Why did she have to come after me, man?”

“She loved you,” Leah says.

“Yeah?” Rachel scoffs. “And all I did was treat her like shit. She should’ve let the shark fucking get me. I would’ve deserved that shit.”

“She knew what she was doing,” Leah says. “She chose to save you. She gave you a second chance. Maybe don’t waste it.” Silence falls over them, and Fatin returns her attention to her nails. “For what it’s worth,” Leah says. “If it’s worth anything. I’m glad you didn’t die, too.”

Rachel scoffs. “Fuck off with that gay shit, Rilke.”

(But Rachel finally cracks a small smile.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of you were right about what happened after last chapter's cliffhanger, so nice job to you. Thank you for your support and for sharing your theories with me and for being just all around super wonderful. I really appreciate it and love you all. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight.


	26. After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, so this one is over 6k. Did not realize that before now. Hopefully it's worth it.

Leah stands in her bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She runs her fingertip along the scar left behind by the stitches in her face. (It’s been two months since the car accident – since the night Fatin rejected her. She doubts this scar is going anywhere. The perfect physical reminder of one of the worst nights of Leah’s life. And that’s including all the time she spent on the island.) Leah’s phone, resting on the counter next to the sink, starts blowing up. She tears her eyes away from the scar, looks down at her phone. It’s the Unsinkable Seven Snapchat group chat (that they’ve recently started using more frequently, cleverly titled _Unsinkable Bitches_ ). The first thing that opens is a picture of the back of a guy’s head, clearly taken from Martha’s science lab room. (Martha and Toni transferred colleges last month.) The caption on the picture is _GUYS YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE THIS BUT MARK FROM THE NIGHTCLUB IS IN MY BIO CLASS PLEASE SEND HELP_.

(The rest of the girls have already replied. Toni sent tons of laughing emojis. Fatin told Martha to _get it, girl!!!_ ) Leah closes out of the group chat without replying, returns her eyes to the mirror. The only other person home with her right now is Fatin. Toni and Martha are on campus. Rachel found a coaching job, even though she doesn’t need the money, but she still won’t admit she actually enjoys being around children. Shelby’s out shopping with Dot, and Fatin would normally be with them if she didn’t have an AA meeting to attend. But that meeting is over, and now she’s here. With Leah. Alone. (So Leah hasn’t set foot outside of her room.)

Leah finally leaves the bathroom, at least, and takes her phone with her. She throws herself down on her bed, starts scrolling through Twitter. (#Leatin has died down again, but #Shoni has been trending for, like, weeks. Ever since Shelby admitted to some sleazy reporter that she’s been with Toni since they were on the island. And they’re cool with it, mostly. Having strangers snap your picture randomly in public is still strange, probably always will be, but Toni and Shelby seem to have adjusted to the extra attention just fine.)

Leah returns to her feed, and she only sees the news in the first place because an author that she follows retweets it. A simple tweet. From @JeffreyGalanis. Confirming he’s engaged to @MelodyRyan. (Okay, whatever, good for him? Obviously fuck him, but Leah’s over it –) Leah clicks on Melody Ryan’s profile. She’s a student at Berkeley. Her birthdate is visible to the public. Leah does the math easily. Melody Ryan is nineteen years old. Leah sits up abruptly, scrambles to grab the remote to the TV, and flips to the first celebrity gossip show she can find. Of course they’re talking about the engagement. This is award winning, bestselling author Jeffrey Galanis. He’s been on some kind of a press tour because he’s got another book coming, to follow up the one he basically wrote about Leah. And he’s _engaged_ to a _nineteen_ year old, and even this show is putting his ass on blast about it. (Of course they spew the whole _well, I suppose it’s legal_ bullshit, but who knows how long Jeff has known this girl? Who knows what he’s done to her, too?)

Leah feels faint. She’s lucky she’s already sitting down. She also kinda feels like she can’t breathe. (And it’s not because Jeff is engaged. Not at all. She’s spent over a year working through her shit in therapy; she knows it’s all his fault. And here he is, _engaged_ to a _student_ who’s _nineteen_. He could’ve easily –) Leah shuts the TV off. She can’t hear any more debate about this, can’t look at the picture of Jeff’s stupid fucking face that the show feels the need to put up alongside Melody Ryan’s. (She looks so young. She _is_ so young. What did he do to her?)

She texts Ian.

**2:42 p.m.** _Google Galanis and look at what he did_

She feels trapped suddenly, even though her bedroom is spacious. Leah accidentally throws the door open with too much force, and it bangs against the wall, shaking the photographs and artwork hanging along the hallway.

“Jesus!” Leah hears Fatin exclaim from her bedroom, directly across from hers. Fatin appears in her doorway, and her eyes lock onto Leah. “What the fuck was that?” Fatin demands. (This is the most they’ve spoken to each other in at least the last week, maybe the last two weeks. The last two months have been rough, with Leah doing her best to avoid Fatin at every turn, and Fatin pretending like nothing’s wrong even though the entire house pretty much knows the gist of what went down. But what else is new? No one knows how to mind their business. But at least no one has tried to force Leah to interact with Fatin.)

“He’s engaged,” Leah manages to whisper.

Fatin’s eyebrows pull together. “What? Who – that _fucker_?”

Leah pulls up Twitter again, throws her phone across the hall. (She’s sort of surprised Fatin catches it instead of letting it slam into the wall.) Fatin stares down at the tweet, clicks the screen, so Leah assumes she’s checking out Melody Ryan’s profile. Fatin’s jaw slackens for a moment before she clenches it and crosses the hall, slaps Leah’s phone into her palm.

“A nineteen year old?” Fatin hisses. “I’ll fucking _kill_ him –”

“Don’t,” Leah says. “Don’t even bother to say it. There’s nothing – I can’t do anything about it.”

“Obviously he’s manipulating her –”

“They’ll call me a liar,” Leah interrupts. “If I try to expose what he did to me – and I’ve thought about it – the entire world will call me a liar. He’s an award winning, bestselling author. And I’m just the kid who survived a fake plane crash. And I have no proof of anything that he ever – I have no proof.”

“You have texts,” Fatin says. “Right?”

Leah shakes her head. “I deleted it all. All of it. I needed to get it away from me. And I had the book, at least until…”

“We burned it on the island.”

“I have no proof, and they’ll believe him over me,” Leah whispers. “And I’m sure his new fiancée will stand by him and defend their love or whatever. It’s what I would’ve done two years ago.” Fatin doesn’t have anything to say to that. Leah shakes her head, ignores her phone buzzing with texts from Ian. “I should’ve done something sooner,” Leah says. “It’s my fault. I could’ve –”

“Hey,” Fatin says sharply. She grabs onto Leah’s shoulders, and Leah flinches instinctively. (The last time Fatin touched her, literally, was the night she rejected Leah. Two months ago. Leah has been very careful to avoid getting anywhere close to touching Fatin.) Fatin lets go, eyes widening. (And she’s wearing the watch. She’s always wearing that fucking watch.) “This isn’t your fault,” she says. “It’s his fault. You know that.”

“But this girl –”

“She’s an adult now,” Fatin says. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“I can’t be here.”

Fatin catches Leah’s wrist, holds on even though she receives a death glare from Leah in return. “Do not drive off,” Fatin warns. “Do not leave this house.”

“You aren’t the boss of me.”

“The last time you stormed out and got in a car, you nearly got killed.”

“I was fine,” Leah sneers. Fatin’s eyes flick to the scar on Leah’s cheek, and Leah flinches like she’s been slapped. “I’ll be fine,” she insists. She tries to pull herself free of Fatin’s grasp, fails. (Her eyes fall on that watch on Fatin’s wrist, and she futilely attempts to wrench herself free again.)

“You’ve totaled one car already,” Fatin says. “And you were lucky to walk away relatively unharmed. I’m not going to let you total another one or potentially end up dead on the street.” (And there are plenty of cars Leah could total now. As soon as Dot forced them to replace the Escalade with a literal minivan, they all went out and splurged on their own cars, leaving Dot to drive the frugal, reliable mom-minivan all on her own.)

“Like you’d miss Dot’s Honda so much,” Leah scoffs.

“Fuck the Honda,” Fatin says. “I’d miss you.”

Leah shakes her head. “No. You don’t get to do this. And you don’t get to say you’d miss me, either. Let go of me.”

“Only if you promise not to leave.”

“I can’t be here.”

Fatin pauses. “Then I’ll go with you. I’ll drive.”

“Go _where_?”

A smile flickers on Fatin’s face. “I’m very good at distractions, you know.”

(Anyone. Anyone besides Fatin couldn’t be home right now?)

Fatin grabs the keys to the Audi, and Leah finds her legs carrying her to the garage, finds herself getting into the car. (With Fatin Jadmani. The girl she poured her soul out to only to be swiftly met with rejection two months ago. And two months later, just seeing Fatin’s face still stings, every fucking day.) Leah doesn’t bother to ask where Fatin’s taking her. Doesn’t really care, as long as it’s away from the house, away from TV screens that can show her Jeff’s face and the face of his impossibly _young_ fiancée. As long as they go somewhere that’ll help keep Leah’s eyes off her phone, away from social media. Leah doesn’t care what they do, as long as it keeps her from spiraling. (Leah getting in that car crash two months ago was almost a blessing, because at least it prevented Leah from spiraling after Fatin rejected her. Funny how things work out.)

Fatin drives for almost a half an hour before she finds parking and motions for Leah to walk with her. (They haven’t spoken since they left the house.) Fatin leads them into an art museum, still doesn’t say anything, and Fatin pays the admission price before Leah thinks of something to say.

“Do you even like art?” Leah asks.

“I’m the one who decorated the house, remember?” Fatin replies. “So yeah, I like art. What? You don’t?”

“No, I – I do.”

Fatin shrugs. “Then don’t complain. Look at some art. Clear your mind or whatever.”

And they don’t speak again for over an hour as they wander through the museum. Fatin follows Leah’s lead. (Leah doesn’t look at her phone, and she doesn’t catch Fatin checking her phone, either.) As Leah’s eyes graze over paintings and sculptures, she has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Fatin thought to bring her here, that Fatin somehow knew this would calm her down, that Fatin somehow knows not to fill the silence between them with meaningless chatter. (Fatin rejected her two months ago, and since then, they’ve barely spoken, but Fatin still just _knows_. Something in Leah’s chest constricts as she realizes that.)

“You should tell the others,” Leah eventually says.

“Hmm?”

“Our friends. You should tell them about Jeff,” Leah says softly. “No point in trying to hide it from them.”

Fatin nods. “Okay.” (She texts Shelby, asks Shelby to pass it on, and at least Leah doesn’t have to be the one to try to explain it to everyone.) They go back to wandering, at least until Leah gets hungry and says something about dinner. Then they walk back to the car, and Leah agrees to the first place Fatin suggests. (She doesn’t even know what kind of food the restaurant serves, but she doesn’t have a craving for anything specific, and she doesn’t really care where Fatin takes them.) “You okay?” Fatin asks.

“Fine.”

“Because if you’re not okay –”

“We don’t have to do this,” Leah interrupts. She motions between them. “We don’t have to pretend there’s a friendship here.”

“Maybe we should talk,” Fatin says.

“Why?” Leah questions. “Look, I appreciate what you’ve done for me today, but this doesn’t make us friends. I mean, we’re basically just housemates. And you were the one who was so concerned about hurting me, right? So let’s just forget it, and after dinner, we can go back to acting like there was never anything between us, okay?”

“I can’t do that,” Fatin says. They pull into the restaurant’s parking lot. (It’s some fancy Italian place.) Fatin kills the engine, hits the lock button to prevent Leah from leaving the car.

“Well, you were the one who asked for it,” Leah retorts. (She keeps her hand on the door handle, knowing she could pop the lock manually and get out, but something keeps her here.) “I told you how I felt. I gave you the chance to _do_ something. You decided you didn’t want anything to do with feelings, so okay. No feelings. No _anything_. So _why_ are you the one who can’t just stop?”

“You know, it was my fault you got into that accident two months ago,” Fatin blurts. “It was my fault, but you woke up in the hospital and wanted nothing to do with me, so I haven’t even been able to apologize to you because you won’t look at me, let alone talk to me or even just stay in the same room with me if there isn’t someone else there to act as a buffer.”

“You didn’t cause me to blow a red light,” Leah replies. “So how could it be your fault?”

“I caused you to leave the house.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Don’t sweat it. It wasn’t your fault, so there’s no reason for you to apologize. Can we go now?” She hits the unlock button, but Fatin’s quicker, relocking the doors before Leah can pull the handle.

“I’ve resorted to asking _Rachel_ how you’re doing,” Fatin says. “ _Rachel_. And she’s never exactly been my biggest fan, especially not after the accident. But Shelby refuses to tell me anything about you, and Toni is on Shelby’s side, and Martha is on Toni’s side, and Dot doesn’t know anything about you as it is because you don’t trust her not to pass your shit onto me, so. _Rachel_.”

“You could just mind your own business?” Leah suggests.

“Does that sound anything like me?”

“You minded your business during that year we didn’t talk,” Leah points out. “So let’s just go back to that –”

“And the trial came, and we ended up becoming friends again,” Fatin cuts in. “And now we literally live together. You can’t get away from me. Frankly, you probably never will. You know, the whole Unsinkable Seven thing? Yeah, can’t escape it.”

“I could just move back to the Bay.”

“No one there understands what we went through,” Fatin says. “Admit it. You like living with all of us. I know I do. So we might as well work something out to make this more bearable.”

Leah blinks. “I’ve been doing just fine,” Leah says. “So you can do whatever you have to do, but I don’t see why I need to change when I can cope with avoiding being alone with you. And if you can’t handle it?” Leah pauses, shrugs. “Maybe you should’ve thought that through two months ago, you know?”

Fatin lets Leah get as far as flinging the door open, sticking her leg out, before she says, “And if we were on the island? Is this how we’d handle this situation?”

Leah freezes, brings her leg back into the car. Pulls the door shut. “We aren’t on the island anymore, Fatin,” Leah says. (She lets her hands curl into fists, uncurls them. Breathes deeply.) “We aren’t on the brink of death. We don’t have to hunt for food every day. We don’t need each other to survive anymore.”

“What was the point?” Fatin asks, stopping Leah from leaving _again_. “What was the point of surviving that shithole if we weren’t going to, like, learn from that experience?”

“You’re starting to sound like Gretchen. I mean, she was mostly using us to prove women are superior or some shit, but you heard what she said. She thought it’d teach us all something, too.”

“And she was right about that second part, wasn’t she?” Fatin questions. “I mean, frankly, I learned a lot.”

“I’m not talking about survival skills.”

“Neither am I.”

Leah sighs. “What are you trying to say? Spit it out, will you? I want to eat.”

(Leah watches Fatin resist the urge to make a sex joke. Fatin even manages to suppress a smirk.)

“I’m saying, we can work this out,” Fatin says.

“And I’m saying, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been worked out,” Leah replies. “Or are you forgetting the part where I told you I love you, and you said you can’t deal with it? So I think the issue has been resolved, and the fact that I found out that Jeff’s marrying a girl who’s barely legal doesn’t change anything between us, even if you did something nice for me.” Leah exhales heavily, lets her eyes close. (She subconsciously rubs at the side of her face, at the scar, tries not to let her mind think back to _that_ night, tries not to remember everything Fatin said even though it’s etched into her brain forever.) “You know, can we just go?” Leah asks.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“It passed,” Leah says through her teeth. “Let’s just go home.”

“You and I both know hunger doesn’t just pass,” Fatin replies. She unlocks the doors. “So let’s go. I’ll pay.”

(It’s something like a running gag now. Any of them can afford to pay, but Fatin always insists.)

“Do not make me drag you out of this car,” Fatin warns. “It _will_ go all over Twitter.”

(Leah gets out of the car.)

The host recognizes them, which is bad enough, but then he seats them at a booth in an isolated part of the restaurant, meaning there’s not much to distract Leah from Fatin. (Unless she wants to pull out her phone and agonize over how Jeff’s damaging another young woman, right before the public’s eyes. Even Leah’s not that desperate for a distraction.) Their waiter shows up (and to Leah’s relief, he doesn’t have blue eyes, but Fatin’s eyes still track him as he walks away).

Fatin’s arms rest on the table in front of her, palms pressed flat against the wood. Her fingers are lined with rings. (Expensive rings. Flashy rings. And she hasn’t kicked the habit of keeping her nails short, even if she hasn’t touched a cello in months, and that was only because Dot wanted Fatin to prove that she was any good. Her nails are painted navy, and in the dim light, they almost look black.) Leah stops staring at Fatin’s hands, stares at the fucking gold watch instead.

“The watch,” Leah says, breaking the (strained) silence between them. Fatin’s eyes lock onto Leah’s face in surprise, but Leah keeps staring at that fucking watch. (It’s mocking her. Its mere existence mocks her, mocks them all. Fatin could have any watch, but she wants _that_ one, the one that they used daily on the island, the one that Leah should’ve chucked into the ocean on their last day there. Not that she knew that at the time.) “You keep wearing it,” Leah says. “Why won’t you get rid of it?”

“We’ve had this conversation.”

“Except it was a bunch of bullshit,” Leah snaps. Now she looks Fatin in the eye. “If you’ve accepted that you’re just like your father, there’s no reason for you to wear it.”

Fatin’s fingers unclasp the watch, and she slides it off her wrist, holds it out. “Here,” she offers. “It’s yours.”

Leah stares at it, hanging off the ends of Fatin’s fingertips. “I’m gonna back over it with my car,” Leah says.

Fatin shrugs. “Then back over it with your car. If that’ll make you feel better.”

“It won’t,” Leah says. “But it’ll be a start.”

Leah reaches for the watch, planning her movements carefully so she won’t have to touch Fatin’s hand. Right before Leah’s fingers touch the metal, Fatin says, “Be honest with me for a minute.”

Leah pauses with her fingertips inches away from the watch. (Inches away from Fatin’s hand.) “About what?”

Fatin leans in until her chest presses against the edge of the table, closes her hand around the watch. (And Leah lets her hand fall to the table between them.) “If I would’ve just said it back,” Fatin says, “what would’ve happened?”

“But you didn’t say it back, and I’m not answering a hypothetical like this one. That’s just cruel.”

“You can’t honestly tell me wouldn’t be super jealous all the time,” Fatin says. “You can’t honestly tell me you wouldn’t expect me to cheat on you relentlessly. And you can’t honestly tell me that if I _did_ sleep with someone else that it wouldn’t rip you to shreds. You can’t _honestly_ say you saw _any_ happy ending for us, can you?”

“I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, and now it doesn’t matter,” Leah says. She makes a grab for the watch, but Fatin’s grip on it is too strong for Leah to break easily.

“That’s your problem. You don’t think ahead,” Fatin says.

“If you’re going to insult me, I’ll get a fucking Uber –”

“I thought about saying it back,” Fatin interrupts. “And I liked you since…shit, I don’t even know when, but I think you should give me that one, because you didn’t know when it happened for you, either. But I’ve liked all sorts of people and you’ve seen how that goes. I don’t know what it’s like to – to be in love. It wouldn’t have been fair of me to say it and then not know what to do about it. Not know if I really meant it or if I was just hoping I meant it. And I could just see myself ripping us apart the same way my father destroyed my entire family.”

“So you thought it’d be better to completely reject me instead?” Leah says. “Instead of, I don’t know, explaining yourself like that?”

Fatin cuts herself off before she even speaks when their waiter materializes at their table, just to check if they’re doing alright. (To check out Fatin, obviously. He’s not subtle about it at all.) “Yeah, we’re fine,” Fatin says, giving a dismissive flick of her wrist. (She doesn’t watch him walk away this time.) “I panicked,” she says.

“Yeah, well, I’m tired of you using the panic excuse.”

“I’ve used it exactly twice.”

“Two times too many,” Leah replies. Now she leans forward until her chest presses to the edge of the table too, speaks slowly. “I don’t know where you think this conversation is going, Fatin, but I’m going to let you in on a secret, okay? I’ve avoided you for the last two months because I am _still_ in love with you, but the thing is, I really don’t want to be. You obviously still do not have your shit figured out, and I’m not going to wait for you. And the opportunity for us to stay friends has long passed. I am done trying when you’ve made it very clear that this is a lost cause.”

It’s infuriating how Fatin just chooses not to react. How a single emotion does not pass across her face. How calmly she slips the watch back on her wrist, secures it. Their food arrives, which Leah supposes provides Fatin with the perfect excuse to continue to not say anything. (Leah doesn’t know how Fatin’s silence can piss her off when Leah’s been the one saying she doesn’t want to talk all day.) When the check comes, Fatin hands her card to the waiter. The receipt comes back with a number written at the top. Fatin looks right at Leah as she folds the piece of paper up and tucks it into her bra. (But the guy’s eyes are brown, and Leah knows he’s kind of skinny for Fatin’s taste, and he’s shorter than Fatin would normally go for.)

There’s a loud crash somewhere behind Leah, and she twists around to see what’s going on. A woman at a table behind them has shattered – accidentally? – a bottle of wine, and the red liquid soaks into the white tablecloth as the woman flicks droplets of wine off her arm, in the direction of the man seated across from her.

“You know _what_?” the woman shouts at the man. (They’re probably in their forties. The man’s hair is graying.) “We wouldn’t even _be_ here if you would just tell me how you feel,” the woman accuses, jabbing her finger in the man’s direction. (The same waiter that served Leah and Fatin pops up to try to offer to help, but the woman tells him, loudly, to fuck off.) The man tries to say something – make some excuse, probably – but the woman cuts him off. “You can’t even just own up to it, can you? You won’t even _try_ to explain what’s going on in your head to me. You won’t even try. You should just – you should get out. I’m tired of the – the excuses, and the silence, and the total lack of effort.”

Leah stands abruptly, does not want to intrude on this poor couple’s personal business any more than she already has. (Not that anyone would extend the same courtesy to her. If that was Leah going off on Fatin like that, there’d be cameras to catch it all.)

“Well, that was something,” Fatin mutters as soon as they’re out of earshot of that couple, on their way out the door. “At least we haven’t made a scene like –”

“Just stop!” Leah exclaims. She stops walking in the middle of the parking lot. “Just because you went silent the rest of the night after I told you I won’t wait and – and that I’m done trying doesn’t mean you get to act like I didn’t say anything. You don’t get to act like nothing has happened.”

Fatin presses her lips together then grabs a fistful of Leah’s shirt, ignoring her protests, but she only does it in order to pull Leah out of the middle of the parking lot, back toward the Audi where they’re less likely to be picked off by any cars. Leah shoves her off once they’re next to the Audi, moments before Fatin blurts, “Just tell me how to fix it.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Fatin shakes her head. “I let you walk out last time,” Fatin says. “For an entire year. And you’ve avoided me for two months and only stopped because, like, the universe intervened and showed you that shitty news about that fucking pedophile. And you know what? I shouldn’t have rejected you. Is that what you want to hear? I made a mistake then, but I still can’t – I can’t tell you what you want to hear, because _I don’t know_. I really don’t know what the fuck is going on in here.” (Fatin presses her palm against the center of her chest, and Leah’s eyes drift from Fatin’s face to her hand, to the flashy rings.) “And that’s the best I can do right now, okay? I went silent in there because I didn’t know what to say. And then that woman yelled at that guy for not trying and – I should’ve tried, two months ago, and last year, and _fuck_ , even on the goddamn island. And I shouldn’t have rejected you. But I stand by what I said. I was hurting you then, and shit, I’m hurting you right now. And it’s just going to keep being like that, so how could you love me when all I do is –”

Fatin stops, inhales sharply, stares over at the restaurant instead of at Leah. “You’re right,” Fatin says. “I don’t have my shit figured out. I don’t know if I love you back. And you should want better than that. I guess I just – I guess two months ago I just decided for you that you’d want better, so I didn’t even try. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t even bother to try for you. You didn’t miss your chance; I missed mine. And I’m so sorry.”

Fatin starts to make her way around the car to get behind the wheel, and Leah only just manages to snag Fatin’s arm and stop her. “Try now,” Leah breathes.

“What?”

“Try. Right now,” Leah says. “You just gave like a whole speech about how you should’ve tried harder in the past. So you want to fix this shit between us? Then try, _right now_ , or this is it. Like, this is seriously your last chance to fucking do something before I’m gone forever –”

Leah doesn’t get very far into the speech she’s suddenly intending to give in hopes that _maybe_ she can convince Fatin to stop fucking worrying about what _might_ go wrong or what she _might_ fuck up. No grand speech is necessary, apparently. (Well, maybe telling Fatin to try was the same thing as telling her what to do.) Leah’s back hits the Audi behind her at the same time that she pushes her hands into Fatin’s hair, holds them together (though Fatin shows no sign of pulling back). And Leah kisses Fatin until she can’t breathe. Fatin’s fingertips continue to press into Leah’s waist even as Leah shifts back to take a fucking breath. Leah closes her eyes, leans her forehead against Fatin’s, strokes her thumbs along Fatin’s jaw.

“Leah, I don’t –”

Leah shushes her. “You don’t have to know yet. Stop trying to map everything out. Just – do you want me right now?”

(She should’ve phrased that better, knows it the second Fatin chuckles.)

“In what way?” Fatin teases. “Either way, the answer is _God_ , yes.”

“Then stop trying to plan the fucking future out,” Leah says. “You know you at least like me, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s enough for right now,” Leah says. “We can figure the rest out later.”

“So what you’re saying is, you lied. You are willing to wait for me,” Fatin says.

Leah pushes at Fatin’s stomach enough to get her to take a step back as Fatin grins. “I mean, if you _like_ me, yeah. You had me thinking you didn’t want _anything_ with me – or couldn’t handle anything or didn’t feel anything.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’re gonna find out what I can handle, huh?”

Fatin drives home (fast), and when they rush in the house, Dot exclaims, “Finally! We were wondering when you two would get home. We’re all in the basement. We were gonna watch –”

“Yeah, no,” Leah interrupts. “I’m going to bed. The whole Jeff thing or whatever has me fucked up.” (A total lie, but a lie Leah knows that Dot will buy and not question her about.)

“Fatin?” Dot questions. “Come on. It’s a good movie, I promise. No weird shit.”

“Yeah, I don’t think my dinner sat right with me, so I might be in the bathroom for a while,” Fatin says. “Don’t wait up.”

Dot eyes her suspiciously but disappears into the basement without arguing any further. Leah clamps her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles and rushes for the stairs with Fatin on her heels. Leah pulls the door to her bedroom shut, knowing anyone who comes upstairs will just assume she’s sleeping in there. Leah doesn’t give Fatin a chance to ask what she’s doing, just pushes Fatin across the hall into her bedroom, shuts the door behind them.

“You gonna chicken out on me this time?” Leah teases.

“God, I’m never gonna live that down.”

Leah wastes no time getting her pants off. “Just make it up to me now.” She pulls her shirt over her head, smirking as Fatin’s eyes widen. “Nothing you haven’t seen already,” Leah reminds. “And, fair warning, I tried to be polite last time and that didn’t really work out for us, so, I’m sitting on your face, like, right away.”

“Do you know how long it’s been since I last had an orgasm?” Fatin jokes. (Leah’s already pulling at Fatin’s shirt, desperate to get on with it in case the universe’s sense of humor is too sick, in case something is about to go wrong. But she can feel somewhere deep down that nothing’s gonna go badly this time, can see it all over Fatin’s face.)

“You went three months without one,” Leah says. (Leah tosses Fatin’s shirt aside, starts tugging at her belt.) “I think you can wait a little longer.”

*

“Tell me about Fatin.”

Leah stares blankly at Faber as she sits cross-legged in the center of her bed. It’s the third time he’s made an extra trip to see her in her room within the last five days. “What about her?” she asks.

Faber shrugs, taps his pen against his leg. “How would you describe your relationship with her?”

“On the island?” Leah questions, just to see if she can get under this guy’s skin. (They were being watched on the island. He knows everything he needs to know about Fatin.)

“On the island. Before the island,” Faber says.

“Before the island, we didn’t have anything close to a relationship,” Leah says. “Like, there was literally just nothing. We didn’t talk. We didn’t know each other. We were just two girls from the same school that ended up on the same stupid retreat together.”

“But you became friends,” Faber prompts.

Leah huffs. “Sure. We all did.”

“But Fatin,” Faber continues. (His blue eyes are more piercing than normal.) “She was special.”

Leah rolls her eyes dramatically. “She’s Fatin Jadmani,” Leah says. She cracks a smile, refuses to break eye contact with Faber. “Of course she’s special.”

“She’s special _to you_ ,” Faber says. He points his pen at Leah, raises his eyebrows.

Leah shrugs. “All the girls are. We kind of all survived this really traumatic thing together, you know?”

“Agent Young told me you asked to speak with Fatin specifically,” Faber admits. “He got you special permission to write letters. Why did you choose Fatin?”

(It’s so hard not to laugh in his face.)

“I mean, I had to pick someone. And Fatin’s from home.”

“But you two are close.”

“As close as we are with any of the other girls,” Leah says. “Look, I’m sorry, Agent Faber, but I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to get at here.”

He sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. “Let’s try it this way. When you picture life after the island, do you see any of the girls from the island staying in your life?”

“I’m sure they all will, to some degree,” Leah answers. (Faber’s a hard man to read, but she knows she’s been getting under his skin these last few days. She hasn’t been giving him what he wants to hear. He probably knows Leah kissed Fatin way back on day sixteen, and even if they were both high, he probably thinks it’s an indication of something more. He probably knows Fatin was always the one to pull Leah back from the edge. He knows, and he can’t figure out why Leah won’t just fess up about it.) “Like I said,” Leah says. “Shared trauma. It’s a really good way to bond with people you’d never bond with otherwise, you know? But I don’t see why Fatin would be, like, some exception. We’re all friends. But hey, who knows? Maybe Fatin will go right back to her old life, pretend like this never happened.”

“And you’d be okay with that?”

Leah shrugs, keeps her expression as neutral as possible. “It’s not like I’d cry myself to sleep every night if she dropped out of my life.”

Faber hums. “Right.”

“You don’t believe me,” Leah says.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. But I just don’t get why you’d think I’m lying. And I don’t get why you think Fatin is, like, just _so_ special to me. I thought you wanted my perspective on what happened on the island?”

Faber’s lips press together into a thin line. (She’s got him now. He can’t admit they were monitoring them while they were on the island. He can’t admit he knows more than what she’s given him, than any of them have given him. And he hasn’t tried to tell her that Fatin characterized their relationship on the island as anything special.)

“Unless she said something?” Leah questions.

“No,” Faber says. He gets to his feet, returns the chair to Leah’s desk. “Thank you for your time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh. Jeff evaded justice this time because sadly that shit happens, but Leah's still going to be able to heal and move forward with her life. (And who knows? Maybe in the future he gets his ass caught and thrown in prison.) Y'all haven't been afraid to share your thoughts with me, so hit me with it in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Or send me a message on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. Thank you all so much. Two more chapters to go. We're almost there.


	27. 83

“Oh my God!”

Leah bolts upright, realizing too late the sheet has slipped and she’s buck-ass naked, fully exposed to whoever’s standing in Fatin’s doorway. Fatin stirs next to Leah, groaning, and Leah now regrets not moving back to her own room. It’s Dot, of course, and at least she has her back turned to the room now.

“Dorothy,” Fatin complains. “Get out, please.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dot says. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting this.”

“That’s why you should really learn how to knock,” Fatin yawns. She throws the sheets back, gets up, walks across her bedroom completely naked. (Leah doesn’t know if her eyes should follow Fatin or if she should be making sure no one besides Dot has caught them. But it’s so hard not to let her eyes follow Fatin as she heads for her dresser, starts searching for something to put on.)

“This is _not_ how I needed to start my day,” Dot whines. “But I guess Twitter is right.”

“Wait, what?” Leah questions. Fatin pulls a shirt on, slips into a pair of panties, then grabs Leah’s clothes and tosses them onto the bed for her. (And Leah hurries to yank a shirt over her head, hurries to get her underwear on so Dot doesn’t have to shield her eyes anymore while she explains what the fuck is going on.)

“Someone spotted you last night,” Dot informs. “In the parking lot. You’ll never guess the hashtag that’s trending again.”

“What else is new?” Fatin dismisses.

Dot hands Leah her phone. (It’s not just #Leatin anymore. It’s #LeatinIsReal, and the picture of Leah and Fatin kissing in the parking lot is _everywhere_.) “I think TMZ is even reporting on you,” Dot says nonchalantly. “So I guess all this,” she motions toward the bed, “makes more sense now.”

(Leah hands Dot’s phone back, looks to Fatin, maybe expecting her to freak out. But Fatin seems unbothered.)

“So,” Dot says slowly. “You two worked your shit out?”

“Kinda,” Fatin answers before Leah can open her mouth. “I’ll fill you in later. Can you go now? I was hoping things would carry into this morning, before you so _rudely_ interrupted us.”

Dot blinks. “Actually, the others sent me to come wake you two up – even though they obviously thought you wouldn’t be in the same bed together – because they have some news, so. No more fucking. Get dressed for real and meet us downstairs.”

Dot closes the door behind her, leaving Leah alone with Fatin. (Maybe Leah should think about getting out of Fatin’s bed.) Leah’s teeth sink into her lower lip as she waits for Fatin to say something, but Fatin doesn’t say anything. She pulls on a pair of sweats, runs her fingers through her hair, then strolls back over toward Leah. She places her hands against Leah’s shoulders, pushes her back down to the bed, straddles Leah and sits back on Leah’s hips. She keeps her hands pressed against Leah’s chest, would be holding her down if Leah had any intention of attempting to get up.

“We should go downstairs,” Fatin says.

“Yeah,” Leah agrees.

Fatin grins down at her, grins wider as Leah’s hands come to rest at her thighs. “I think they can wait twenty minutes or so, right?”

(They can’t. Dot yells for them ten minutes later, and they spring apart, rush to get themselves decent and get down the stairs.)

“Dude,” Dot says as they step into the living room. “Not cool.”

“So Leatin actually _is_ real, huh?” Rachel questions, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re weak, Rilke.”

Leah rolls her eyes, tries not to smile as Fatin flips Rachel off before throwing herself down on the couch between Dot and Shelby. “So what’s the big news?” Fatin asks. “I was kind of in the middle of something –”

“We don’t want to know,” Rachel says.

“Marty, you go first,” Toni says.

“Mark and I are dating!” Martha blurts. “He officially asked me yesterday.”

(As they all congratulate her, Rachel mutters something about when Leah and Fatin are gonna make it official, until Leah shoots her a glare.)

“No offense, Martha, I’m super happy for you,” Fatin says, “but you all deprived me of another orgasm just so we could find out Martha has a boyfriend?” (A boyfriend apart from the half of the mannequin that permanently lives in their living room, that Leah’s staring at right now. And if Leah was crazy, maybe she’d think that poor Marcus over there looks a little disappointed about this development between Martha and the very-much-alive Mark.) To answer Fatin’s question, Shelby lifts her left hand, and all their eyes lock on the diamond on her finger. “Holy shit!” Fatin shouts. “When did this happen?”

“Last night,” Toni says smugly. “Which you and Leah would’ve already known if you weren’t too busy –”

“Oh my _God_ , Shelby, that’s great!” Leah says loudly, drowning Toni out. (Toni exchanges a glance with Rachel though, snickers as Rachel rolls her eyes.)

“Yeah, yeah, as much as I’d love to talk about our engagement,” Toni says, “we kind of already tweeted about it, so we’re going to see which Unsinkable Seven couple the internet likes more. You know. Since _Leatin_ is real now. But _Shoni_ is engaged, so fuck you guys for trying to steal our spotlight.”

“Toni. Fuck off,” Dot says (and Leah wonders if Fatin somehow managed to tell Dot something about their tentative arrangement, about how it’s nothing official apart from, like, they’re trying. Trying to do _what_ is an interesting question, and suddenly Leah’s anxiety spikes, even as she’s trying to be happy for Shelby – and Toni, if she’d stop being a jerk for, like, two seconds). Fatin suddenly busts out laughing, and she holds her phone out, shows everyone the way Toni had tweeted their news. It’s a picture of the ring on Shelby’s finger, obviously, but all Toni wrote is _WE’RE ENGAGED BITCHES!!!!!!_

“Someone put on some of that celebrity trash news,” Rachel requests. “They’ve got to be talking about this.”

“Nah, ten bucks says they’re talking about how Leatin’s real,” Toni says. “They’ve been waiting for that forever.”

“You’re on,” Rachel agrees. She fucking finds a show, and it _is_ fucking talking about Leatin. (Rachel pays Toni the ten bucks, though she doesn’t look happy about it.)

“You all just _had_ to go make out in public on the same night that I proposed to Shelby, huh?” Toni says, shaking her head. “You fucking suck.”

“It’s not like we _knew_ ,” Fatin counters. “So? Who’s planning your wedding?”

Shelby laughs, assures Fatin that they haven’t gotten nearly that far yet. Then Martha says, “Shit, Toni! Mark’s here to pick us up! We’re gonna be late for class!”

“That’s your fault, too,” Toni says, pointing at Fatin. “If you would’ve gotten your ass down here faster instead of –”

“Let’s go,” Martha insists, pushing Toni toward the door. And just like that, they’re all back to normal (except Shelby’s wearing a giant diamond and is, like, bouncing around all day and smiling for no reason other than the fact that she’s engaged). Rachel leaves to coach her kids. Dot goes back to her DIY project in the basement (ripping out and replacing all the carpet, and yes, she’s wearing her cargo pants, and yes, Fatin tells her she looks like a lesbian). Fatin follows Shelby around, harasses her about what she wants out of her wedding (even though it’s probably at least a year away).

It’s easy for Leah to evade being noticed when she heads into the basement to find Dot ripping up carpet (and lighting a cigarette even though she swore she wouldn’t smoke in the house). The heavy metal blasting out of the speakers isn’t exactly surprising, but it prevents Dot from realizing Leah’s behind her until Leah taps her on the shoulder. The cigarette falls out of Dot’s mouth, and she scrambles to get it before she, like, accidentally lights the carpet on fire.

“Jesus! Warn a bitch,” Dot says. She doesn’t explain how Leah could’ve warned her with that music blaring throughout the entire basement. (Dot turns the music down.) “What’s up?”

“So, I know, like, the media and whatever is having a field day with that picture of me and Fatin,” Leah says. (She rejects Dot’s offer to share the cigarette.) “And they’re throwing, like, a _Leatin is real_ party or whatever, but…I’m not sure Leatin actually is real?”

Dot’s eyebrows raise. “You’re not sure?”

“I mean – we agreed to try? Then came back and, like…”

“Fucked,” Dot says. “You can say it. Believe me, Fatin tells me _all_ the dirty details about _everything_. You won’t scandalize me.”

Leah cracks a smile, tries not to think about how soon, Dot will very likely know exactly what she’s like in bed, thanks to Fatin’s big mouth. “I don’t want to scare her off, but I also don’t want her to fuck other people so how do I…convey that to her?”

Dot blinks. “With words? Like, you go upstairs and tell her you don’t want her to fuck other people. Exactly like you just said it to me.”

“And if she runs?”

Dot shrugs. “I think whatever you said to her yesterday freaked her out and got her to at least see that she doesn’t want to lose you.”

“How did you know I said something to her?” Leah asks.

“She texted me,” Dot says. “But she did _not_ warn me that you were fucking in her bed, though, otherwise I wouldn’t have walked in.”

“Yeah, got that.”

“I’m just glad she didn’t ask me to join you,” Dot chuckles.

Leah grimaces. “Yeah. Me too.”

“So? You obviously figured out a way to express yourself last night. Go up there and tell her you only want her to fuck you. She should be able to handle that even if she can’t handle, like, actual feelings yet.”

“Right. You’re totally right.”

Dot scoffs. “Of course I am. Now, if you aren’t going to help me rip out this godawful carpet, please, excuse me.”

The music cranks back up, and Leah heads upstairs, finds Fatin shadowing Shelby as she prepares lunch for herself. “Um, Fatin?” Leah calls. “Can you stop bombarding Shelby with questions she can’t answer and talk to me for a second?”

“We’re not done with this conversation,” Fatin tells Shelby. “We’re going to pick it back up later. I need to know all about where you’re trying to get married. No beaches.”

Shelby laughs. “Yeah, I’m afraid my dream of a beach wedding has disappeared.”

“So?” Fatin says, walking with Leah to the living room to give Shelby some (peace and quiet) space. “What’s up?”

“Look, I know we just started to, like, get back into each other’s lives or whatever, and we have a lot of shit to work through,” Leah blurts, because she figures the best strategy is to just get it all out as fast as she can. “But I really don’t want to stress over whether or not you’re gonna fuck someone else –”

“Whoa, slow down,” Fatin cuts in. “If you don’t want me to fuck anyone else while we’re working out shit out, I won’t, okay? Promise.”

Leah exhales. “Wait, really?”

“Yes. Obviously.” Fatin pauses. “I mean, as long as you keep the orgasms coming, right?”

Leah rolls her eyes, catches her lower lip between her teeth. (Blushes a little.) “Okay. Right. And I won’t fuck anyone else either. Not that you were worried?”

Fatin grins. “It’s good to hear anyway. Not as good as hearing there’ll be many more orgasms to come. Ha, get it?”

“Yeah, I should’ve known this conversation would go like this,” Leah says, shaking her head. “You can go back to harassing Shelby.”

“I am _not_ harassing her. I am…interrogating her about her wedding taste.”

“Might want to get on her good side, though,” Leah points out. “She’ll need a maid of honor, and you want to beat Dot out for the job, don’t you?”

“Like Dot would do it,” Fatin scoffs.

“If Shelby asked, she might.”

“Shit. You’re right. Okay, I’ll get off Shelby’s back.” Fatin pauses, and her eyes soften. “And seriously. I won’t fuck anyone but you for the foreseeable future.”

“Okay,” Leah says.

“And since I can’t bother Shelby, and since Dot’s busy, and since everyone else is gone…” Fatin raises her eyebrows, nods toward the steps, smirks.

Leah sighs, nods. “Remember to lock the door this time.”

Fatin laughs, wraps her arm around Leah’s neck, pulls Leah into her. “Or we could just go ask Dorothy to join us? I’m sure she’d have more fun with us than she’s having ripping out that godawful carpet.”

“No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d agree to that.”

(It’s hours later, and they’re lying in Fatin’s bed, naked, even though it’s the middle of the day and their friends are starting to come home. Leah’s perfectly content to stay like this, even as Fatin grazes her knuckle along the scar on the side of Leah’s face, but after Leah swats Fatin’s hand away for the third time, Fatin finally knocks it off. Fatin rolls over then, causing Leah’s eyes to open, and she watches Fatin lean over and grabs the watch off the nightstand. Fatin holds it out to Leah. “Take it,” Fatin says, dropping the hunk of metal into Leah’s palm. “Back over it with your car or throw it through the neighbor’s window or whatever. You’re right. I have no reason to hold onto it.”)

*

Leah tosses the (Nora's) journal aside, tries not to think about how they’re closing in on ninety whole fucking days on this island. (When the sun rises, it’ll be day eighty four.) Today’s been rough. The sun’s only just going down, but Toni and Shelby are already wrapped up in each other, both passed out. Martha’s passed out in her usual position, one arm and one leg flung across Marcus. Dot is asleep literally spread-eagle on her back, snoring. Rachel’s basically sleeping the same way as Dot but on her stomach instead, her cheek pressed to the sand. And of course, the only other person awake with Leah is Fatin. Not for any good reason, though. Fatin’s just sitting in front of the fire, legs drawn to her chest, watching the flames.

“You alright?” Leah finally asks. (She doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting in silence. Fatin’s wearing the watch, after all, and Leah’s never had a good sense of time.) When Fatin doesn’t immediately answer, Leah gets up, walks to the other side of the fire, sits beside Fatin. Leah’s eyes study the side of Fatin’s face, try to decipher what her solemn expression might mean. “Don’t go dark on me,” Leah says, nudging Fatin’s arm with her elbow.

“Sorry,” Fatin says, like she’s just been snapped out of a trance. “I was just…thinking.”

“Thinking?” Leah says. “About what?”

A smile flickers on Fatin’s face, but she still looks troubled, still continues to stare at the fire instead of meeting Leah’s gaze. “I don’t know how to explain how my mind got here,” Fatin admits. “So it’s gonna sound a little weird.”

“Fatin, I doubt anything you say could surprise me at this point,” Leah sighs. She waves her hand, says, “So just hit me with it.”

“You remember when we all got high?” Fatin questions. “Like, _way_ early on. When we blew through our food supply?”

“Yeah,” Leah grumbles. “How could I forget? We thought we were getting rescued.”

“Yeah, but like, do you _remember_ it? Like what happened when we were high?”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together. (How could she forget? But she doesn’t know if Fatin means the kiss or if she’s just asking if Leah remembers everything that happened while they were high.) “A lot of things happened, Fatin,” Leah says. (She absently traces patterns in the sand in the space between her and Fatin.) “Martha thought Marcus came to life and led us into the woods. Shelby had a freak out and cut her own hair. We ate all our food and spent hours fucking around in the ocean.”

“We kissed,” Fatin adds. “You forgot that one.”

Leah exhales heavily. “Yeah. I didn’t forget. I just thought maybe you meant something else.”

Fatin cracks a smile, tears her eyes away from the fire briefly in order to gauge Leah’s reaction. “Why would I mean anything else?” Fatin chuckles. “What do I normally enjoy talking about?”

“I mean, it happened, like, seventy days ago or something,” Leah mutters. “I don’t even know anymore, but you haven’t brought it up yet, so why would I think you’d bring it up now?”

“I _said_ I was thinking.” Fatin pauses then reaches out to shove at Leah’s knee. “You never brought it up either, Rilke.”

“Why would I? It’s…”

“It’s what?” Fatin prompts.

“Embarrassing.”

Fatin laughs (quietly, so she doesn’t wake anyone). “Why?” Fatin asks. “We were high. We thought we were leaving. We were _happy_.”

“So? That doesn’t make it not embarrassing.”

Fatin shrugs. “It was probably bound to happen at some point,” Fatin jokes. Her hand goes to the watch at her wrist, and she fidgets with it as she continues to stare at the fire. (Something’s bothering her, even if her attitude toward the fact that they kissed has been outwardly pretty flippant.) “And honestly?” Fatin says, looking at Leah just long enough to flash her a grin, “I enjoyed it.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad,” Leah mutters.

“Of course it wasn’t bad,” Fatin scoffs. “This is me we’re talking about, so I know it was at least _good_.”

“You’re insufferable,” Leah says.

“Deny it,” Fatin challenges. And as Fatin looks over at Leah with a wide grin on her face, Leah cracks, can’t fight off a smile of her own as she shakes her head.

“Fine. It was good,” Leah concedes. “From what I remember, at least. I was pretty high.”

“So was I. It was still good. You said it yourself.”

“Why are you thinking about this?” Leah asks. “I mean, I know you said you couldn’t explain why, but, like, try to explain what train of thought led to this.”

Fatin’s grin starts to fade. Her eyes return to the fire. She shrugs. “Maybe I really am just getting desperate,” she says. “You know, since I haven’t had an orgasm in literal months. But maybe it’s doing me some good. Clearing up my mind or something.”

“No, it’s really not.”

“Not at all,” Fatin agrees. They both laugh, and even though it’s not that funny, when their eyes lock, they both laugh harder, and Leah grabs onto Fatin’s shoulder with both her hands and stifles her laughter against the back of her hand as she leans into Fatin (and as Fatin leans right back into her). “I don’t know,” Fatin says when they pull it together. (Leah doesn’t move back, doesn’t let go of Fatin’s shoulder or lift her head.) “But it’s really sad that _that_ was the most action I’ve gotten on this godforsaken island. And _those two_ have been getting it on since, like, what? Day twenty two or something? That’s some bullshit.”

“It’s not their fault that the most action you’ve gotten was from me when I was high,” Leah says. “And it didn’t even go anywhere.”

“God, I _know_. And just so we’re clear, I would’ve let it go somewhere if Martha hadn’t so rudely interrupted us,” Fatin says. (Leah swallows hard, still doesn’t move out of Fatin’s space, doesn’t stop holding onto her.) “I needed an orgasm then probably more than I need it now. I’m like an addict who was forced to quit cold turkey.”

“That’s…pretty accurate, actually,” Leah murmurs. (Leah chooses to ignore the fact that Fatin basically just said she would’ve fucked her if they hadn’t been interrupted, but Leah’s heart pounds in her chest anyway.) Leah hesitates, does lift her head off Fatin’s shoulder this time (but keeps both her hands there). “You aren’t, like, about to ask me to –”

“What? No! No, of course not,” Fatin says. Now Fatin’s the one to hesitate. “You know I’ve been joking, right? Like, every time I’ve come onto you these last eighty something days? You know I’ve been playing around?”

“Yeah,” Leah says defensively. “We all know you joke about sex, Fatin.”

“Okay, just – wasn’t sure for a second there.”

“You’re the one who just said you would’ve fucked me on day sixteen.”

Fatin busts out laughing again, but Leah can’t even bring herself to smile. Fatin grabs onto Leah’s arms to keep herself from falling over. Fatin nods, swipes at a stray tear. “Yeah, you got me there,” Fatin says. “But it’s probably a good thing that Martha thought she saw Marcus,” Fatin continues. She shakes her head. “If we’d fucked…I mean, that could’ve gotten _really_ messy, you know?”

Leah’s eyebrows pull together. She lets go of Fatin’s shoulder, leans back on her hands instead. “Why?” Leah asks.

“No offense, Leah,” Fatin says. (She twists her body so she’s facing Leah, sits cross-legged, rests her fists against her knees.) “But you don’t strike me as the _sex without feelings_ type.”

“Oh, please. You don’t have any way of knowing what I’m –”

“Well, am I right?” Fatin asks.

“Maybe,” Leah grumbles. “I mean, the only person I ever slept with was…well, you know. Him.”

Fatin hums. “Yeah, you should probably change that.”

“You just accused me of not being capable of doing the whole _sex without feelings_ thing.”

“Give it a shot.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Yeah, not on this island, thanks.” She inhales deeply as Fatin studies her. “At least being trapped here for almost three months has helped me start to see just how shitty everything about my whole – what did you call it? _Jeff sitch?_ – was.”

“Yeah, it’s fucked up,” Fatin agrees. “Seriously, you’re probably going to need a lifetime of therapy to process all your shit.”

Leah smiles. “We all are, I think.”

“True story.” Fatin exhales heavily, stares down at the watch on her wrist instead of at Leah. “At least you know you can, like, do relationships or whatever. Even if I wouldn’t call what you and Jeff had a _relationship_ since – yeah, you get it. Look at that! That’s progress. This unexpected island retreat wasn’t all bad.” (They smile at each other, but Leah’s smile lingers on her face longer than Fatin’s.) “I think I’d just fuck up any relationship I got myself into,” Fatin admits. “They’re probably right, you know. I’m just like my father. Always have been.”

“Now that’s some bullshit,” Leah snorts. “The cello just stole your chance to even try to keep up a relationship. That’s not really your fault.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just afraid to try, just in case I’m like him.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Leah says. “If we ever get out of here.”

“I’m not dying without having another orgasm,” Fatin warns. “So at what point do we decide we’re actually stuck here forever and start pairing off?”

Leah smirks, actually thinks about it. “I don’t know? Day one hundred?”

Fatin nods, rubs her chin thoughtfully. “That’s only, like sixteen days away, right? I think I can wait sixteen more days for an orgasm.”

(Their laughter wakes up Martha, and after she figures out that it’s Leah and Fatin’s fault that she’s awake, she mumbles something about Marcus being cold and pulls him closer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are seriously almost done. The next chapter is a short and fun epilogue. I'll save all my gushing for the notes at the end of that. You know I love hearing your thoughts in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight and feel free to shoot me a message there.


	28. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. 28 chapters posted in 28 days. It is done. Fucking wild, isn't it?

This is the worst possible time to ask, but they’re backstage at _This Morning America_ , about to go on national TV to tell the world that, yes, #Leatin is fucking real, and yes, they’re so excited for the upcoming #ShoniWedding. (It’s crazy that almost another full year has gone by. Gretchen lost her appeal, but she’s probably working on another one. And in the wake of the news of _that_ , when _This Morning America_ reached out to Fatin, she said they’d appear on the show without asking Leah – or anyone else – first.)

“Wait,” Leah says, grabbing Fatin’s arm. (They’ve got maybe three minutes before they’re on.) “They’re totally going to ask what we are,” Leah frets. “What are we gonna tell them?”

“Relax, babe,” Fatin dismisses. “I’ll come up with something.”

“No, I just mean – if they ask if we’re, like, _together_. We haven’t really talked about –”

“I will handle it,” Fatin promises. “You just relax and look pretty, okay?”

Fatin winks at her, and that makes Leah more nervous than she was before. By the time they’re seated on the couch, Leah can’t remember the name of the host of the show, even though she says it right before they sit down. (Fatin’s skirt is too short, and she’s forced to sit with her legs crossed, hands resting on her knee. Leah instinctively reaches over and takes Fatin’s hand, and Fatin doesn’t react, just smiles at…nope, Leah’s still drawing a total blank on the host’s name.)

“Well, welcome to the show!” the host says cheerily. (She must’ve already introduced Leah and Fatin, and Leah just can’t remember.)

“Thanks for having us, Brooke,” Fatin says. ( _Brooke_. Her name is fucking _Brooke_. Leah totally knew that. Obviously she didn’t, but she’s so glad that Fatin did.)

“I see you might have some news that maybe you’d want to share with our viewers?” Brooke prompts, motioning toward their clasped hands, resting against Fatin’s (bare) leg. Fatin grins widely. (And Leah tries not to think about how last week, before they went to bed, Fatin had – without even thinking – mumbled three words into Leah’s neck, and as Leah’s entire body stiffened, Fatin was suddenly alert. Fatin lifted her head, said _shit, oh my God, I said that out loud and I fucking meant it. And I haven’t totally fucked us up yet so – oh my God. This is insane. I love you._ And then they fucked literally until the sun rose when Dot finally banged on their door and complained that they’d woken her up on four separate occasions and said to please give it a rest now. Fatin literally told Leah she loved her, _literally said_ she hadn’t fucked anything up, and Leah’s still sitting here on national TV, panicking because she doesn’t know if that means that they’re, like, girlfriends or not.)

“We do have some big news,” Fatin confirms. “But first, since we know the rest of the Unsinkable Seven are watching from home right now, I wanted to say we love you guys. We wouldn’t be here without you, literally. And congratulations to Toni and Shelby for not calling off their engagement, not that that would ever happen because they’re so grossly in love. This wedding is going to be _the_ event of the year, Brooke.” Fatin pauses, squeezes Leah’s hand reassuringly.

(Leah’s body has started to relax on its own, though. Fatin’s doing most of the talking, as she promised, and she’s actually doing just fine so far. All of Leah’s worrying has been for nothing.)

“Now, there’s been speculation about me and Leah basically since we returned from the island,” Fatin continues. “You know, the whole _#Leatin_ thing that started as soon as we got back to school. Which, I’d just like to say, neither of us appreciated. It totally delayed our progress for, like, over an entire year, so thanks a lot to all the Twitter users for harassing us. We’re lucky we’re even sitting here in front of you today, Brooke.”

“So you are, in fact, confirming that you’re a couple?” Brooke questions.

Fatin blinks, and Leah’s eyes widen. (She does _not_ like the smirk that passes across Fatin’s face.) “I mean, we haven’t really talked about it too in-depth yet,” Fatin says, “but considering that we’ve been fucking, like, _daily_ for the last year – more than once a day, even, and like, you know, full on coming on each other’s faces – I’m gonna go out on a limb and say yes, we _are_ a couple.” Fatin turns her head, smiles as Leah’s face burns bright red (and as Brooke chokes on her coffee). “I love you, baby.”

The time delay allows the censors to block her words out, but the cameras stay on Fatin’s face, and her lips are easy enough to read. (Somehow, later, an uncensored version will find its way onto social media.) And Fatin looks unbearably proud of herself, laughing as Brooke struggles to come up with something to say while she dabs at the coffee she’d spit onto her shirt.

(Back home, as Toni literally ends up on the floor from laughing so hard, Dot yells at the screen, “Fatin! You can’t say that on live TV!” She pulls out her phone and texts that exact same thing, even though Leah and Fatin are both _still_ on the live program, so Fatin’s not about to check her phone anytime soon.

“Oh my,” Shelby sighs, putting her face in her hands. “Toni and I were supposed to go on _This Morning America_ right before our wedding, but I have a bad feeling they’re going to cancel on us now.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely never allowed back on that show,” Martha mutters. “Thanks a lot, Fatin.”

Rachel just looks impressed, says, “Respect, though.”)

“Did that answer your question?” Fatin asks as they walk back to the car.

“In the worst way possible, yes,” Leah says. She takes Fatin’s hand, intertwines their fingers. “I love you, too.”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

“We’re never going to be allowed on live TV ever again.”

“No, definitely not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned you last chapter that I was gonna get mushy. First I need to thank my bud who's been keeping me sane this entire time: Kidfish here on AO3 (if you haven't checked out her fics yet, you totally should). This fic was only finished because of your support. I owe you big time.
> 
> Now to all of you readers out there: you've been so amazing. Seriously, I am grateful for each and every one of you that has gone on this journey with me - and I mean all of you. All the regular commenters, the sporadic commenters, the lurkers (I know you're there, and that's what matters most). I love you all. You've all made my days so much better. I truly cannot thank any of you enough. You're just gonna have to believe me when I say I am so grateful for every single one of you. You've had such a positive impact on me.
> 
> I know that some of you are sad to see this fic end. This fic may be over, but this is just the beginning. I have more Leatin fics lined up for you guys, and I have more ideas which means more for me to write. We're gonna get through the show's hiatus together. And I will be here when season 2 starts, regardless of what happens.
> 
> Let me know what you think of the epilogue in the comments. I thought it was a nice callback to episode 8 and a fun way to end a fic that was like 90% angst. And when I'm not posting fics, you can find me on tumblr at blinkaftermidnight. Feel free to shoot me a message there to talk about Leatin or ask about upcoming fics or just bother me in general lol.


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